


To Beard the Lion

by wargoddess



Series: Bearding the Lion in His Den [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Anal Sex, Dom/sub Undertones, Flashbacks, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oral Sex, PTSD, Rape Roleplay, Rimming, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-20 12:05:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3649692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As if Dorian hasn't slept with someone who wanted to kill him, before. Hah.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Playing with dubcon, thus the archive warning, and some explicit mentions of a rape that occurred in the Gallows. NEW: There's now a Russian translation, by Mey_Chan, [here!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9452279) With hilarious artwork, so go look even if you can't read Cyrillic.

     "I would value your friendship," Cullen says to Trevelyan. "I'm afraid I cannot offer more. I trust you understand."

     The words are softly-spoken, yet so cold as to be hard in the moment, in the practice yard, in this icy nowhere that Haven so proudly occupies. Metaphorical cold, emotional cold, to match the atmospheric cold. Dorian overhears the exchange and smiles, mostly because he's glad of any distraction from the omnipresent cold, and listening to the commander of the Inquisition destroy the amorous hopes of the Inquisition's -- spokesman? rifts-closer? whatever Trevelyan is -- makes Dorian pay less attention to the burning sensation in his toes. (Perhaps it is that mythical horror known as frostbite. Perhaps he is allergic to fleas. Andraste only knows.)

     Not for him to delight in another's suffering, of course, though there is a part of Dorian that is glad to see Trevelyan smiling off the rebuff, changing the subject to something innocuous, and eventually retreating with his dignity more or less intact. There is a part of Dorian which marks Trevelyan as a prospect for later comforting -- not now while the man is vulnerable of course; Dorian isn't a barbarian. (But soon. The man does lie _so_ well from the back.) So this is not what makes him laugh. No, what draws a deep chuckle out of Dorian's belly, so powerfully that he must bite his tongue and pretend a cough so that no one nearby notices, is that Cullen's eyes linger on Trevelyan as the man walks away. It is with visible effort that he turns that gaze aside.

     And en route his gaze stutters across Dorian. There is a blink of surprise then, and a narrowing of the commander's gaze, as if he is suspicious. As if he is ever _not_ suspicious of a Tevinter blood-mage magister demon-eating child thief, or whatever these people perpetually seem to think of Dorian. There is a glimmer of old, undeserved hatred in Cullen's gaze for a moment -- and then, just as firmly as he turned himself away from Trevelyan, he turns away from the hatred. Now he is merely weary, resigned, and faintly ashamed. Ashamed? Of his poorly-concealed interest in superb-quality nobleman arse? Of that instant of fanatical _I will kill you_ that Dorian saw in him?

     As if Dorian hasn't slept with someone who wanted to kill him, before. Hah.

     The commander turns back to his commanding, and Dorian turns to find somewhere warm enough that he can remember what feet are supposed to feel like.

#

     He flirts with the man, of course. Never could resist a challenge, and Cullen's even lovelier than Trevelyan.

     It's an immediate disaster. Cullen is not as gentle with him in the refusal. "I am flattered, serrah," he says, sounding anything but, "but _as you well know_ , I cannot offer more than friendship."

     They are standing in the courtyard of a half-ruined "lost" castle, having just saved one anothers' lives multiple times during the grueling journey from Haven. (Leave it to southerners to _forget_ a bloody _castle_.) During the journey Dorian thought nothing of the matter -- too cold, too hungry, too miserable, too afraid that he'd abandoned his family and duty and fled here only to die without even making a good vengeful stab at living well first. But basal needs have now been satisfied: he has access to food, a tavern with cheap wine, a chilly small room which at least has a decent blanket on its hard bed, and a comfortable chair in the library which he has staked out for his own. Trevelyan has been tricked into becoming the next Andraste, and being one of his trusted companions is a fitting enough way to stick it to Magister Halward. (Dorian might even end up as a book of the Chant! Until they strike him out like they did that Shartan fellow, anyway.)

     Now Dorian may attend to other matters of importance -- and my but the commander's shoulders are broad. My but he makes them broader with that fur stole-thing he wears; Dorian would never doom himself by saying it aloud, but Cullen's fashion sense would suit even the most posh halls of Minrathous. My but those trousers cling, and my but his legs look strong, and my but his hands are long-fingered and callused whenever Dorian has seen them out of gauntlets, and my what a long sword the man carries. (Seriously, how does he even draw the thing? Perhaps he needs assistance.)

     And. My but the commander's gaze is a heavy thing, whenever Dorian feels it against his back.

     Dorian doesn't directly rebut the commander's accusation -- since that is what it is. _You dare attempt to befriend me?_ A mage, even one of Dorian's inestimable quality, would be stupid to take on a southern Templar head-on. Flanking, however, is a viable tactic. "Perhaps chess, then?"

     Cullen actually blinks. Again Dorian needs no blood magic to guess his thoughts: _From flirtation to chess?_ "That would be... acceptable," he says, slowly. Wary, as he should be. "I have not sat a board in some time, I must warn you."

     "Then we shall be evenly matched, because I've played only against Felix, and he was terrible." Mentioning this is a tactical error. Dorian falters, slapped by the recollection that _Felix is dead_ , or near-enough now that his father no longer has the Endless or Exalted or Entitled One's foul magic to keep him alive. But marvel of marvels, Cullen's expression sort of flickers. Softens. Is that sympathy?

     "I shall endeavor to be suitably challenging, then," Cullen says -- and he actually _smiles_ before nodding and turning his attention to the aide who is rapidly approaching with a sheaf of papers.

     It's a start. Felix would not be unhappy to be so used, Dorian thinks. He knows what Felix would say, in fact: _Better to be a helpmeet for finding you a lover than just a memory and a bit of mournful wailing_. So Dorian heads to the tavern, then, to see if there's any wine suitable for pouring in libation. Felix never did have much of a palate, but Dorian will offer the best he can afford.

#

     Cullen is excellent at chess. Rather vicious, in fact, though he conceals this with easy banter and a surprising amount of sass. Dorian plays it off in the same manner. "And here I thought you liked me," Dorian teases at one point, once he feels the aethers have settled enough to bear another delicate probing of the man's defenses.

     Cullen's eyes flick up, and it is there again. That hatred. But it goes away faster this time, and Cullen smiles self-deprecatingly. "I am trained to give no quarter to my opponents, serrah, be they friend or foe."

     "Ah, but so am I," Dorian laughs, "and yet I must bow to your superior skill -- in this one way only, of course." He's careful to keep his smile teasing rather than flirtatious. "I _am_ Tevinter, after all. Can't have some southern Templar getting ideas."

     Cullen laughs, gazing at the board... And yet his voice is ever-so-slightly edged when he adds, "I am trained _particularly_ to give no quarter to Tevinters."

     "Really? Why? We are no different from any other mages, on the average."

     "You are very different," Cullen says, quietly, still not looking up from the board. "Far more dangerous, actually."

     Dorian has not seen Trevelyan coming into the garden, watching them, approaching. The shadow falls across their board and Dorian looks up into the Inquisitor's amused face. There is no jealousy in Trevelyan, he is glad to see; the man is almost comically good-natured. (He wouldn't last a day in Minrathous.) When Trevelyan wants to play, Dorian is gracious in conceding his seat, especially given that the field was already lost. Things were starting to feel fraught in the conversation with Cullen, besides. So Dorian moves off a little ways and leans against a wall to watch them play, and that is when he suddenly understands what Cullen has been saying.

     Because Trevelyan, whom Dorian has seen leap screaming at a dragon, who is a Knight-Enchanter with all the front-line brutality that entails, who is actually quite a good strategist and ought to be able to give Cullen a run for his money... _lets Cullen win_.

     And Cullen sees it. Trevelyan's not even subtle about it. Cullen sees it, and says nothing. Indeed, Dorian rather gets the sense that Cullen _expects_ it.

     But of course, he _does_.

     Once Trevelyan has left, and Cullen is gazing after the man with a look that might best be called fond indulgence on his face, Dorian shifts a little so that Cullen remembers he is there. Cullen's eyes flick to him instantly, a little startled (he has _forgotten_ that a _Tevinter mage_ is standing there _watching him_ , Dorian would feel sorry for such madness if he did not bear its brunt every day) and then puzzled.

     "When you defeat _me_ ," Dorian says quietly, man to man, equal to equal, "you may know it is because you have earned the win. Not merely because I have rolled over for love of the Maker."

     The fondness fades from Cullen's expression. What replaces it is not anger, though -- oh, no, not by far. Not unless anger looks like hunger, flexes through desire and guilt and back to _hunger_ , raw hot wanting so powerful that Dorian nearly flinches with it. Cullen's gaze _almost_ drifts down Dorian's body. Dorian can see how much effort it takes for Cullen to stop at Dorian's chest and then wrench his focus back to the board. Then he gets up, steps around the board, and comes to stand near Dorian -- not quite _standing over_ him, not quite boxing him in, _almost_ close enough to lift a hand and rest it on Dorian's belly. When he speaks, it is _almost_ into Dorian's ear. Dorian feels the almost-ness of the moment so keenly that his skin tingles with a phantom touch.

     "That is why," Cullen says, in a voice that is low and _almost_ a caress, "I should never play against you again." Then he turns around and leaves.

     It is not a setback.

#

     "I know what you're doing," says Leliana. She says it from a shadow near his library cubby, where she has apparently been standing for some time before he noticed her, and where she stands no doubt in an effort to scare the life out of Dorian. She's succeeding admirably.

     "Do you?" he says, conversationally, to cover abject terror. "I'm not even very certain of that myself, dear lady."

     She steps close, her voice low. If Dorian were so inclined, he would likely be mindlessly aroused by the combination of her accent and the soft dangerousness of her speech. Or perhaps he would still be as terrified as he is now; fear has no preferences. "Cullen has been through much, _Altus_ Pavus. I will not see him... toyed with."

     "Toyed with?" Dorian doesn't have to force a laugh, though he does babble; nerves. "I'm not certain what you see that I do not, _Maestra_ Nightengale. He is a powerful Templar, for all that he no longer keeps the vows -- and he is rather _large_ , is he not? What on earth do you people _feed_ these men, down here? Whereas I am dashing, delightful, and _delicate_ , as a mage should properly be -- "

     "He hates your kind," she says. She's smiling as she says it. That's bad, isn't it? Yes, it's bad. But it is not strictly bravado that prompts Dorian to respond with sass. That's just habit. Also, wounded pride.

     "What kind would that be?" Dorian snaps, probably too sharply, but he's never liked the way these people lump him in with the gabbling, half-slave creatures that call themselves mages in these parts. (He is aware that this is... uncharitable. He is who he is.) "Would it be apostates? I'm still technically a member of the Circle of Minrathous, I'll have you know. Tevinters in general? Mages in general? He'd better hand in his sword to Trevelyan, then."

     She leans close enough that her breath tickles his cheek. "Blood mages."

     He can feel her watching him, assessing him, waiting to see what secrets those words draw out. And oh but her claws strike deep. "Maestra," Dorian says in a low voice, thinking of his father, thinking of a ritual, thinking of betrayals and people who are supposed to love you unconditionally and _don't, won't, will not_ unless you fucking _change_ , "if you ever insult me with that appellation again, I shall find a way to kill you, even if it cost me my life in the process."

     Her head tilts, birdlike, with interest. She _would_ find more to trust in a death threat than any protestation of innocence. "I shall hold you to that," she says, finally.

     Dorian lets out a breath and leans against the library balcony railing. He grips it so she won't see his hands shake, even though she probably has already.

     "He is a man grown," he says, finally, softly. "More than ten years my senior, in fact. In any case, I think we can both safely assume that he knows what's good for him, and what's not, and will make his decisions accordingly."

     Silence behind him. When he turns, she is already gone.

     Well. Perhaps it is a kind of approval. After all, he's not dead.

#

     With all his ogling, of course Dorian has noticed the shaking hands. It isn't difficult to spot the occasional twitch, either, in reaction to the muscle spasms and phantom nerve pangs that lyrium withdrawal is said to provoke. Enough older Altus in Tevinter get this way after years of lyrium usage that Dorian thinks nothing of deciding to do something about it. It does not occur to him that this, like everything else in the south, makes shameful and vulgar what is only natural.

     So he searches through the paltry markets of Val Royeaux whenever Trevelyan takes him there, and then finally one of the merchants in Skyhold is able to acquire the last ingredient, and it is simple enough to make the potion that he has in mind. When Dorian sets the vial down on Cullen's desk, which Cullen is currently bent over and gripping in obvious pain, he actually isn't thinking of seducing the man, for once. He actually just wants to ease a friend's suffering. They are that, at least, aren't they? Friends.

     Thus Dorian is not prepared for the sudden blaze of fury in Cullen's eyes as he explains what the potion is for. He is completely astonished, in fact, when Cullen picks up the vial and throws it against the far wall so powerfully that pieces of glass tinkle all over the room when it shatters. And he is -- _alarmed_ , yes, that is a good euphemism for it, much better than _terrified beyond wit or wisdom_ \-- when suddenly Cullen has him across the room and against the wall next to that smear of potion, mailed forearm lodged against his throat like the Great Wall of Qarinus.

     "Who told you?" Cullen snarls.

     "Told me what," Dorian says -- or tries, and fails to say. One does need a larynx to speak, after all. He mouths it. Hopefully southern Templars learn to read lips, given their predilection for silencing all dissent. "Commander, this is -- really -- "

     "Was it Cassandra? No, I cannot credit that. Trevelyan?" The man's eyes narrow. They are quite beautiful eyes, Dorian notices even now -- hazel and long-lashed despite the maniacal fury in them. It's not at all surprising that Dorian still craves him despite this whole mage-icidal tendency that he so often displays. Dorian has _good_ taste, but it has never been _wise_ taste.

     "Trevelyan," Cullen concludes at Dorian's (choked) silence. "I _knew_ better than to trust him."

     Dorian tries to shift, but there's rather a lot of Cullen, and Cullen's free hand has pinned Dorian's right hand -- the one he uses most for spellcasting, of course Cullen would disable that first -- to the wall. What could Dorian do, anyhow, except emit a mind blast or some other defensive spell? Which he feels fairly certain would drive Cullen past _choke a mage_ and full-on into _kill a mage and salt the ashes_.

     "N-not," Dorian grates out, with considerable effort. "Trevelyan. Guessed."

     "What?" Cullen blinks, and in his surprise eases back a little. Dorian immediately sucks in a desperate breath.

     "I _guessed_ ," he says again. It gets easier as he catches his breath, and as the choking fear eases too. Cullen is listening. He is rational, more or less. Dorian tries to speak quickly, lest this window of rationality be brief. "You think I... haven't s-seen... lyrium dependency before? How else would I know a remedy for it?" With the air, a measure of his wits return. " _You great barbaric oaf_."

     Cullen flinches, and the haunted shame in his expression is something that Dorian literally cannot understand. "Then it is obvious."

     Dorian blinks at him, incredulous. Should Cullen not be apologizing for throwing him against a fucking wall? To which Cullen _still has him pinned_. "What is obvious? That I have given you a gift at considerable personal expense and effort, and you've _shat_ on it and assaulted me in the process? Yes, thank you, that is _quite_ obvious. Get off of me!"

     To his great relief, the commander flinches again and releases him, moving back a step. "I... forgive me," he says, looking away, and there is something so wounded about him, a touch of kicked-puppy and a heaping serving of traumatized war veteran, that Dorian's anger begins to unclench. "I did not... it is only that... I thought my shame _private_. Yet you have seen through me so easily."

     Shame? Dorian wonders. He cannot fathom it, but living in the south means accepting any number of things he barely comprehends. "I wouldn't say it was easy," Dorian says, adjusting his collar and dignity. "At first I thought you merely had migraines, or had gone too long without suitable companionship. Why in the Maker's name would you go off the lyrium if it affects you so, and if the Inquisition can supply you?"

     "It is a chain," Cullen says. His gaze goes dark and hard, and for once the hatred in his face isn't for Dorian. "It destroys the mind."

     "It has always been a chain, and you knew it would destroy your mind when you signed up for the Templars." It's cruel, but with his throat still aching, Dorian is not inclined to be kind. He's still tense, too -- his pulse still fast, his jaw still tight. He doesn't know if what he feels is anger or... something else. No, it's something else. He feels _close_ to something, some critical bit of understanding that has eluded him thus far. _Maker, but dancing around this man is terrifying._ And exhilarating. Dorian covers his completely inappropriate excitement by unnecessarily brushing off his shoulders. "Did something _particular_ spur your recent decision?"

     The thing on Cullen's face isn't a smile. Why, oh why, does Dorian want him so? There are stronger jaws, broader shoulders, other long-fingered hands that are not as prone to wrap around a mage's throat. This whole pursuit is insane.

     "Kirkwall," Cullen says at last.

     All the pieces fall into place. Dorian _sees_ , at last. But just as he achieves this miracle of cross-cultural comprehension, Cullen turns the most bitter look on him that Dorian has seen on anyone short of a mistreated slave. "Stay away from me," he says, and turns to go back to his desk.

     _Go_ , says Dorian's every instinct. Cullen has given him fair warning, and it is increasingly obvious that something is _wrong_ with the man. The lyrium withdrawal just makes it worse. In this state, the chance that Cullen will do something he might regret but then oops Dorian's dead anyway, is just too high.

     But... well. If Dorian had ever been the sort to listen to his instincts, he would still be in Minrathous, married and making good headway on his early death by cirrhosis. So he peels away from the wall and goes after Cullen, pacing on his heels, talking practically to the back of his hair, _attacking him_ with words because if he's going to dance with a demon then he will make a bloody _waltz_ of it.

     "You didn't turn Trevelyan down because you found him unattractive. You turned him down because he was a _mage_ , and because you think of mages as something you're not supposed to touch!" Cullen stops so Dorian has to also, but he doesn't stop talking to the man's back. "Well, I'm not one of those cowed, trained _pets_ you're used to. My own father couldn't cage me; I'd like to see you try! I didn't grow up thinking myself innately flawed -- or at least, not for _that_ bloody reason. You can't bully me, Commander. You can't coerce me, you can't intimidate me, you can't _annul_ me. If you ever come at me in earnest, I will burn you to bacon or die trying. _I won't let you win_."

     Cullen's long, lovely hands are curling into fists. But Dorian has the bit now, and he's running. He's grinning, the way he always does before a duel, the way he always has when there's a good chance he'll die in the next five minutes. Maker, his dick is hard. His father's wrong about the particulars but right in the aggregate; Dorian's never been right in the head.

     " _Kirkwall?_ " He laughs, pushing, pushing, watching those great leonine shoulders tighten before him. "Ah, my dear commander, the Gallows are legendary even in Tevinter. I doubt you joined in on all the fun and lovely games that happened there; you don't seem the sort to molest the blood-mage boys or brand yourself a few soulless sex slaves. But for seven years you lived among murderers and torturers, hearing the screams, stepping over the bodies. The taste was in your mouth even if you spat out the blood. The lure of the forbidden! You never touched, never took, but _you wanted to_ \-- "

     Cullen turns and comes at him and Dorian is ready. Oh, Andraste is he ready. But the expression on Cullen's face is not angry, and his approach is not aggressive, yet he grabs Dorian's shirt again and walks him back again and pushes him against the wall again and pins him again. It is not violent, just inexorable. Dorian's breathing hard after his tirade, and for other reasons. Cullen is, too, perhaps from restraining whatever impulses are alive and ravening within him right now. It's almost cliche. The commander's body is hard against his, with armor and leather and tension and an erection that _is_ there, that _is_ happening, oh yes of course it is, while Dorian forces himself to remain pliant. This is a choice. He makes it consciously. The commander craves his submission -- craves the submission of a mage, not just any mage but one who doesn't _have_ to submit, one who will only submit if he _chooses_ to -- and so Dorian chooses, and submits, because that is apparently how one seduces the former prison warden of some benighted magephobic shithole. A former prison warden who, somehow, still has a sense of integrity.

     Cullen's breath quickens when he feels Dorian go pliant, oh yes it does. He leans in close, and if this really was the cliche, he would kiss Dorian. It would be tender and Dorian would melt and the clothes would come off and he would have Dorian there on the desk, most likely after melodramatically sweeping off papers that he'd have to move anyway because one does not send marching orders splattered with dried sweat or semen if one can help it. This is not a cliche. Cullen breathes, his gaze fixed on Dorian's mouth, "Open for me."

     Dorian smiles lopsidedly. Obedience is a trap. "Perhaps you should make me."

     The room blurs to a jolt. Dorian gasps as Cullen pulls him forward and slams him back, then wraps fingers around his face, holding his mouth where Cullen wants it. Cullen's mouth brushes his, lips parted, breath hot, and then the kiss is sealed, soft, slurping, _fasta vass_ the man eats mouth like Dorian sucks cock. Then that mouth wanders along Dorian's jaw, over his own thumb, his hand is turning Dorian's head to bare his ear, and in it Cullen breathes, "Fight me, or I shall take you."

     Dorian laughs. Oh, Maker, he was so right about this man. "But if I do it at your command, is it a real fight?"

     Cullen snarls and turns him around to face the wall, pressing close again to pin him there. "Tell me to stop," he says, even as he grinds against Dorian's ass. "Tell me you do not want this."

     Dorian's going to die of blood lost from his head to his cock, if that is possible. "That would be a lie, my dear commander. But -- " He has to swallow. Drooling. "Tell you what: you do something I don't like and... I'll set fire to your hair. Will that do?"

     Apparently it will. Cullen starts unbuckling Dorian's leathers, unhitching his tunic and tugging up his undershirt. Dorian fumbles a hand down to unlace his own trousers, meaning to help, but Cullen pushes Dorian's hand away and yanks his pants open and all at once his hand is wrapped around Dorian's cock. It's inexpert; too much grip, not enough caress. Maybe he's not used to grabbing another man's genitals, or maybe he's trying to hurt Dorian, or maybe he just doesn't know his own strength. It feels so damned good that Dorian thrusts against the tightness, letting out a raw, hoarse sound that is nothing like a moan. And maybe Cullen's not as inexpert as he seemed, because he starts stroking Dorian like he's milking a farm animal. Like Dorian is a possession, his to play with as he pleases. That thought really should not be as arousing as it is.

     But no, no, Dorian wants more than this, and he won't last long if this keeps up. He tries to stop pushing against that tight-curled hand and Cullen shoves hard against his backside, fucking him through their clothes, fucking _for_ him. "Wait," he tries to gasp, and it's the wrong thing to say, or maybe the right thing, because Cullen utters something like a snarl and thrusts faster, adding a bit of wrist-action. Dorian's going to come in moments at this rate, and he doesn't want to. He wants Cullen _in_ him, not this torment. So he fumbles with one hand, breathing hard because Cullen's chest is heavy against his back, plate mail pressing his shoulderblades, or maybe he's breathing hard because he's had dreams too much like this. He tries to touch Cullen, but it's impossible to do so with any sort of authority; Cullen's got him too firmly pinned to the wall. If this were anyone else, Dorian would beg for him, plead for the chance to open his pants and stroke him and be had by him, even without oil, even here in Cullen's ridiculous office where one of his aides might walk in at any moment -- but begging, too, is a trap. Cullen wants _conquest_ , not surrender. So Dorian plants his free hand against the wall and pushes back against Cullen, even though Cullen is bigger and stronger and he knows it's fruitless. He doesn't really want to get away. He just likes the way Cullen's breath quickens as he snarls and presses Dorian harder against the ancient stone until he subsides.

     "Wait," he tries again, even though it's wrong. He can't think. He's fucking Cullen's hand again, willingly this time, moving at the ruthless pace Cullen's hips have set. Can't help himself anymore. "Wait, please, I w-want -- "

     "Do you think I care what you want, mage?" Fingers tangle in the back of his hair, tugging his head back, just on the edge of pain. "I could Silence you right now. Even without the lyrium."

     Is that true? Dorian's belly clenches for a moment in real fear. There are rumors that the lyrium isn't necessary... Then Cullen's teeth graze his neck and he belatedly realizes it's another trap. So hard, figuring out the rules of this game as they are being written. Dorian forces back a laugh, makes himself swallow. Maker, he's so close, and Cullen's hand is so relentless. "If... if you try to... hnh... I'll... _bite_ you to death, if I must!" It's pathetic as threats go. Laughable.

     But Cullen does not laugh. His hand covers Dorian's face again; two fingers slide between Dorian's lips. Daring him to bite? Dorian almost giggles hysterically. He can hear Cullen swallow. His stroking hand is hot as fire, and Dorian is shaking with pent need now. He licks Cullen's fingers, suckles them desperately, and Cullen hisses and jerks his fingers free as if Dorian _has_ bitten him. Dorian doesn't want Cullen to stop anymore.

     "Tell me to stop," Cullen breathes again.

     " _Never_ ," Dorian cries, and he is gone.

     The stone is cool beneath his forehead as he recovers. His knees have not buckled; that's rather impressive under the circumstances. Especially given that Cullen's not pressed against him anymore, and nothing holds him up except the wall. Dragging in a heavy breath and making an Andrastean effort, Dorian rolls over to see that Cullen is over by the desk, pulling on his gauntlets and vambraces.

     "I'm sorry," he says, his back to Dorian. "You should have stayed away from me."

     Dorian tries to laugh, and musters only a breathless, exhausted _hah_. Does he really think he's done anything Dorian didn't want? Dorian decides to disabuse him of that notion. "I don't follow your orders, _Commander_."

     Cullen pauses for a moment, but doesn't turn. He resumes then, meticulous in the way he buckles on the vambraces, checking each strap, making sure they're tight. It has the air of a meditation. "It wasn't entirely a game for me, Dorian."

     Oh, Maker, no, it wasn't. Dorian felt the truth in all those little threats. But he licks his lips. He's never been a wise man. "And I meant it when I said I wouldn't let you win."

     Ah, there. A little jerk of those shoulders. That was a shiver.

     "I have a thought of calling on you tonight," Cullen says, again after a moment. "Lock your door if... you should lock your door."

     "I imagine mages in a Circle aren't permitted to lock their doors against you, are they? You must have some experience with breaking doors down." He shrugs, amused. Though for the sake of not pissing off the locksmith, he'll just leave the door unlocked.

     Another shiver. Cullen is so beautifully broken. "You have no idea what is _in my head_." It's a hiss. "The things I -- " He cuts himself off. Unable to face those things, even verbally.

     Dorian shakes his head. Hitches his pants up, rearranges his clothing. He's left a present on the wall next to the splatter of potion, but both are Cullen's fault and this is his mess to clean up. That's what Templars do, right? Clean up mages' messes, and the mess they make of mages.

     "Come and take me, then," Dorian says, sauntering a little as he heads for the door. "Take me and _take me_ , bend me under you for hours, make me do everything that's in your pretty, blond, mad head, my friend. Everything a Templar might, to a mage like me." He opens the door and glances back over his shoulder -- and oh, what big gleaming hungry eyes this lion has. Dorian's neck tingles with the memory of teeth.

     Then he adds, with every ounce of ferocity that he can put into his voice, "If you _can_."

     With that, he closes the door, and heads back to his room to prepare for the battle to come.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In his dreams, Cullen has never left the Gallows and never will.

     A mage who has been free his whole life.

     A mage who has _never_ lived in fear -- not of Templars, not of discovery or societal censure, not even of demons. A mage who has _owned_ slaves, though never _been_ one. There is a kind of purity in this.

     In Cullen's dreams, he destroys this purity, again and again and again. He is in the dungeons of the Gallows, and Dorian sits before him strapped to a chair, with runed manacles binding his wrists. He is in a Gallows cell -- Dorian's Gallows cell, though this mage has never lived in captivity and would die first -- ordering Dorian to turn and face the bars. Cullen is passing the courtyard, going about his business and ignoring the nigh-omnipresent sounds of someone being flogged, and the body strapped to the post is long and brown and the cries are in a familiar voice.

     In his dreams, Cullen has never left the Gallows and never will.

     (He caught Karras at it once. Hauled the man away, assigned him punishment, asked Meredith to consider cashiering him but pushed no further because the victim in question was a blood mage and any hint of sympathy towards such would have Meredith cashiering _him_. He feared for his lyrium and so the next time he ignored the sounds of struggle from the room, the snuffling grunts, the soft sobs. His punishment for these sins is to have an image branded in his mind forever: the mage bent and despairing, Karras taking him roughly from behind. Cullen's punishment is to envision this again and again and feel... no. He does not _want_ to be a monster but he feels... oh Maker he feels...)

     _Dorian was willing. He -- I told him to stay away from me and he chose not to. He **chose**. I told him to fight me and if he had, I would have stopped._

     But Cullen knows this is no surety. People being assaulted do not always fight back. Mages are sometimes so terrified of Templars that they obey even when they do not wish to. That is why Cullen denied Trevelyan, would never have touched Amell, did not even let himself fantasize about Hawke; there is no way to ever be sure, with a mage who has known the terror of the Templars. Dorian could have pretended willingness, feigned enjoyment, enduring Cullen's lust only until he could escape --

     No. No. Dorian _hasn't_ known Templars as they can be in the south: enforcers, hunters, gaolers, tormentors. That is why Cullen allowed himself to, to, _that_ , to him. If Dorian tolerated Cullen's touch, it must mean that he _wanted_ that touch.

     It must.

     Cullen paces a small circuit in his office, biting the knuckle of his thumb. There is a callus there already; he bites it the same way when his thoughts turn to lyrium. Now there is a wonder: he hasn't thought of lyrium all evening. Not since -- He stops and looks at the wall of his office. There's a bucket and soapy water there, and a brush which he used to scrub Dorian's potion, and Dorian's other leavings, off the wall.

     He has such a need, and lyrium cannot even begin to fill it.

     _Come and take me_ , the mage said, _if you can. I won't let you win._

     "Andraste guide me," he breathes into the silence, but his thoughts are not truly of Andraste. _Dorian. Do not let me **sin**._

     Then, with careful and deliberate movements, he opens and then shuts the door of his office, and heads toward Skyhold's main body.

#

     Dorian's room is one of the small ones above the garden. Cullen is somewhat surprised at this choice. He has never gotten the sense that Dorian is particularly devout, and yet here the mage must listen to Mother Giselle and her fellow Chantry women endlessly preaching and singing into the late hours of the evening. Then he considers again, and glances over the balcony to recall the layout, and -- ah. Skyhold's chapel is directly beneath Dorian's room. Whatever carnal endeavors the mage gets up to will effectively take place on Andraste's head. Yes, that explains much.

     Cullen stops before the door, swallowing, his palms sweaty. The mage is inside, moving around and humming tunelessly. It's hard to hear. Skyhold's doors are thick, its stonework solid. No one will know what is happening inside if Cullen is careful.

     Will the door be locked?

     If it is, he tells himself firmly, he will go away. He will never speak to Dorian of what happened between them again, except to apologize. He will formally end their friendship, if he must, and submit himself to Cassandra for judgment on the ethical lapse of coercing one of the Inquisition's allies into an inappropriate affair.

     He turns the latch. It opens easily.

     As he quietly steps inside, he sees the mage on the other side of the room, standing before a full-length mirror and carefully brushing wax into his moustache. He's barefoot, clad only in trousers; on a nightstand nearby Cullen sees a damp towel and a pail full of bath implements, wet and recently-used. There is a waft of cologne on the air. Something expensive. When Cullen pushes the door shut, the mage's eyes flick to him in the mirror, and his expression goes unreadable for a moment. Cullen watches closely for any hint of reluctance, or smugness. The former will mean he is unwanted. The latter will mean the mage has no inkling of the danger he faces.

     Dorian resumes working on his moustache, after a pause. "Do none of you southerners have _manners_? You could have at least knocked."

     Arrogance; it is both infuriating and a balm. Cullen reaches back to lock the door, and it pleases him that Dorian's eyes flick toward this gesture in a contemplative way. Cullen says, "Templars do not knock before entering the quarters of a mage." He paces into the room, circling toward the wardrobe for no particular reason. Civility. Reminding himself that he is civilized. He's never been in Dorian's room before. It's more sparsely decorated than his corner in the library; Cullen has seen a lute there, and he knows full well that velvet chair was not left behind by Skyhold's former occupants, somehow miraculously avoiding dry-rot over the centuries. There are few personal possessions in here: a full and elaborate grooming kit on the dresser, his staff leaning against a corner, one of the ubiquitous portraits of a strange man on the wall, which Dorian has for some reason hung upside down. Cullen opens the wardrobe in the corner and sees only two changes of clothing inside. Dorian's wearing one of the only sets of trousers he owns.

     "Yes, but you are no longer a -- " Dorian's voice falters, and a moment later he is in front of Cullen, glaring at him and pushing the wardrobe shut. "Excuse you! Privacy? Is that something Circle Mages don't get, either?"

     "They do not." Quite without planning to, Cullen shifts his weight, leaning in such a way as to box Dorian in. "At Kinloch, we watched them at meals, in childbirth, on the chamber pot. In the Gallows, their rooms locked only from the outside."

     Dorian looks honestly startled -- and then his eyes narrow as he notices Cullen deliberately invading his personal space. He takes a step back; Cullen's breath quickens. "What magical shenanigans could a mage possibly get up to on the pot, pray tell? Aside from perhaps reading a grimoire to pass the time."

     "It was not about what the mages might do." He follows Dorian, stepping closer, herding him slowly until his back is against the wardrobe. He was trained to do this, once. A way to keep mages off-balance, unnerved, which would weaken their magic since it is driven by will. So easy to fall into the old, predatory habits. "It was about reminding them that the eyes of the Maker are ever upon them, and that they can hide nothing from Him."

     Dorian considers this and then deftly sidesteps Cullen, circling out of the corner and away from him without ever looking like he's fleeing. Even if he is. It's beautiful; Cullen pivots to follow this dance and smiles to himself. His mouth waters as Dorian sniffs, " _You_ are not the Maker, my dear commander." But it is not an accident, he thinks, that Dorian executes a full turn as he speaks. Letting Cullen see the clean lines of him, the curve of his ass, the self-assurance that cries _Of course I am beautiful_ with nary a whiff of humility. And beautiful he is, his skin a smooth brown unblemished even by the stark, strange lines of the tattoo that wends over one shoulder and down his pectoral and abdomen. He is astonishingly well-built for a mage -- but then, Cullen has noticed that apostates tend to be better-fleshed, healthier, stronger. Life flourishes when it is not caged.

     "The Maker guides my hand," Cullen replies, though he doubts the Maker is with him here, now, as he covets.

     "What, to watch me shit? Rather thought the Maker would have better things to do with His time." Dorian goes over to his grooming kit, cleaning off the tiny brush he's been using on his moustache. The tattoo wends across his back, too, vanishing into his pants. It is an arcane thing, Cullen senses, though he can make out none of the recognized elven, dwarven, or blood-magic runes. Just geometric shapes, circles and triangles and shifting straight lines, in varied colors and no discernible pattern. Cullen moves close behind him, examining it.

     "The observation is for the mage's protection," Cullen says. He can no longer help himself. He lifts a hand -- he's left his gauntlets and vambraces in his office, everything but the breastplate because this mage is dangerous and he can never allow himself to forget that -- and draws a finger over Dorian's shoulder, tracing one of the red lines. Touching it helps him feel that it is merely a channeling aide of some peculiar Tevinter sort; the red line concentrates fire magic toward Dorian's left arm, and the black line directs necromancy toward the right. The green and blue lines are probably elemental, or spirit magic. Dorian tenses beneath his hand, and some part of Cullen likes this.

     He continues, "A Templar may inspect the body of any mage as needed in the pursuit of his duty. It is best that mages be prepared for this."

     "What?" Dorian turns his head a little; Cullen sees genuine curiosity on his face. "You mean that in the Circle, you just walked into any mage's quarters whenever you wished and told them to drop trou, and they had to do it? What in Andraste's name were you looking for?"

     "Suspicious markings." He smooths a hand down Dorian's tattooed bicep, spreads his fingers to graze over the pectoral. There is a tiny gold ring set in the mage's nipple; his fingers graze its edge. "Unusual bodily modifications. Signs of blood magic."

     Dorian shivers. Does he like being touched like this? But then Dorian says, "That seems a rather convenient excuse. Come into a mage's quarters, do whatever you want, claim it's duty."

     Cullen slides a hand around him, flattening it over Dorian's belly and pulling him back so that he can kiss the join of his neck and shoulder. Up close, Dorian's cologne smells of myrrh and perhaps cinnamon; Cullen wants to bite him. "Yes. It was a convenient excuse, for some."

     Dorian permits Cullen's manhandling, yielding somewhat, though he still holds himself a little stiffly. The stiffness arouses Cullen; the yielding reassures him.

     "And did you ever do such things?" Dorian asks.

     It's a dangerous question. "Such things?" He flicks at Dorian's nipple-ring again, and then gives in to the urge: he drags his teeth gently along a series of lines which end just below where Dorian's collar would fall, if he had a shirt on. Dorian twitches a little, breath quickening audibly.

     "Barge into a mage's room," Dorian says. His voice is deeper, softer; Maker, Cullen _wants_ him. "Make some excuse to search him. Were these searches... thorough?"

     It's too much innuendo, too powerful a torment. Cullen shoves Dorian forward until the mage gasps and catches himself against the dresser. Items in the grooming kit clink and rattle with the jostling. When Dorian tries to straighten, Cullen pins his right hand against the dresser and kicks his legs apart and reaches around to loosen his trousers. Then he drags them down over the mage's slim hips. It's difficult because Dorian's hard, and the trousers catch on his cock.

     "Perhaps it would help if I demonstrate," Cullen breathes against his neck.

     But abruptly Dorian shoves back against him. He's strong enough that he actually manages to dislodge Cullen, and it is infuriating. That this mage should _resist_ him! Dorian has braced himself against the dresser to do it, so Cullen sweeps his hand to disrupt his balance. Dorian gasps and nearly falls onto the dresser, but he's trying to turn around at the same time, and Cullen's weight crushes him against the dresser, half on his side and half atop his grooming kit, awkwardly twisted. "Damnation! You bloody barbarian, I just want -- "

     "I told you that I did not _care_ what you wanted." The blood pounds in Cullen's ears. The mage has _fought_ him. The mage has resisted his Maker-demanded role, and -- Cullen eases up, flips him fully onto his back so that he is stretched over the dresser. It is uncomfortable and Cullen wants it uncomfortable. The mage must _learn_. When Dorian opens his mouth to protest again Cullen takes his mouth, forcing him silent with tongue and teeth, cupping his head with one hand so that he won't pull away.

     Dorian tries anyway, cursing in his decadent language before remembering that Cullen does not speak it. "There are fucking _scissors_ poking my back, you _oaf_ \-- "

     Cullen lifts him long enough to sweep the leather case and its contents onto the floor, then presses him flat and reclaims his mouth. Dorian always tastes of wine. Cullen delves deep into that mouth, searching for the other tastes of him, inspecting him thoroughly for flavors of illicit substances or blood. But there is only the wine, and Dorian, as intense and sour-sweet as persimmon.

     When Cullen has finished this oral inspection to his satisfaction, he pulls away. Dorian is breathing hard from the scuffle, and perhaps from the kiss, though he glowers at Cullen, not at all cowed. Good. Yes.

     "Do you refuse my right of inspection, mage?" he breathes, nuzzling Dorian's ear. There are so many things he wants to do, right now.

     Dorian utters a shaky laugh. "The right of this, the right of that. Templars endlessly telling themselves that what they do is _right_ does not make it so."

     Cullen has never heard greater wisdom, but discussion does not fit within the boundaries of their game. "Why did you fight me?"

     "Because I wanted to be on the damned _bed_. I am a delicate nobleman and I bruise easily, thank you."

     Cullen wrangles a hand free and sets Dorian loose from the prison of his pants, massaging him more gently than he did in his office earlier. Dorian shudders and inhales, some of the fight going out of him. "I want you here," Cullen says.

     Dorian's eyes flutter shut. "You've said you don't care what I want." He swallows. "But I want to bloody _touch_ you."

     Cullen wants to bloody touch him too. He indulges the impulse, releasing Dorian's cock to slide a hand up the midline of his torso and out over the nipple he teased earlier. The gold ring fascinates him. He tugs it lightly, and notes how Dorian bites his lip to stifle a moan. He could toy with this mage's body for days, ferreting out all its beautiful secrets, but that is not what he craves most right now.

     "Touch me where?" he asks, bending to lick around the ring. Dorian arches, and Cullen feels his hand flail over the backplate of Cullen's armor.

     "Fucking _anywhere_." Dorian's voice is haggard with frustration. "Why are you wearing _armor_?"

     "Because mages are dangerous." Cullen stops tugging on the ring and wraps his lips around the nipple instead, suckling and tickling with his tongue. Dorian hisses out a curse and it is beautiful. He always sounds so jaded and controlled; now he is coming apart in Cullen's hands. "Only a foolish man ever forgets that."

     Cullen is not foolish, but he is not a cruel man, either, and Dorian has said he wants to touch. The thought comes into Cullen's head and it is disturbing, ugly. It makes him flinch back from Dorian's nipple, and it makes his hands shake. But the thought is powerful, too, and... and... Dorian will stop him, if it is wrong. Dorian is a dangerous Tevinter mage, and he will not tolerate mistreatment.

     So he steps back, pulling Dorian off the dresser. The mage stands as Cullen has bidden, swaying a little, breathless. But wary. Yes. Cullen does not ever want Dorian to relax around him. It isn't safe.

     He slides a hand around Dorian's head to cup it, threading fingers into his hair. Then he pulls that head down, as he unfastens his trousers with his other hand.

     Dorian immediately realizes what Cullen is about, and for an instant the game slips; his eyes alight, and he is eager. Then he searches Cullen's face, and it is magic, surely, that he intuits what Cullen needs.

     So abruptly he fights back, stiffening his back against Cullen's attempt to drag him down. Cullen exerts more pressure, stepping closer in tacit threat; he realizes only belatedly that he has bared his teeth. Dorian stumbles a little, but sets his jaw and _pushes_ back against Cullen's hand. Then his eyes flash and his magic stirs and every one of Cullen's old instincts flare a warning and he braces without even thinking about it.

     The mind blast is a mild one, when it hits. Dorian's being careful. Cullen knows full well that a mage of Dorian's caliber could shred the mind of anyone weak-willed or unprepared; this is the equivalent of a master swordsman administering a gentle tap. But. Cullen shunts the strike away easily, as if he still has lyrium in his blood, as if he is still a Templar, and the heady realization of power and the fury of _he has attacked me_ strike at once and mingle and overwhelm him. He snarls and kicks the back of Dorian's leg; the mage yelps as he goes down on that knee. Keeping a hard grip on his hair, Cullen leans down. "Bite me and I shall _break_ you."

     Bizarrely, Dorian laughs, though he is flushed from the effort and there is pain in his expression; there is no carpet beneath his knees, and Cullen has not pulled gently on his hair. Cullen's breathing is ragged as he fumbles his clothing aside and then he is thrusting into the mage's mouth. He hears Dorian gag and for an instant he does not care. He shoves his cock deep and permits Dorian no pause for preparation and uses the mage's hair to hold him in place while he chokes.

     Then the part of Cullen which is appalled, which remembers that _I am not a monster_ , reasserts itself and he pulls back immediately. It is horrible. _He_ is horrible. He has, he is --

     Dorian coughs once, then glares up at him. "Is that all you've got, Commander?" He reaches for Cullen's hips, pulls at him, and opens his mouth.

     Oh, _Andraste_. Cullen's whole body rings as soft heat encloses him, glides down, licks back up. He cannot help closing his eyes, even though it is dangerous; he cannot stop himself from moaning softly, though it makes him sound weak; he cannot help the loosening of his fingers or the helpless jerk of his hips or the complete collapse of his self-control. Dorian slurps him down with relish, one hand curling 'round the base of Cullen's cock and massaging so comfortably and expertly that it is clear he's done this before, many times. It's clear he enjoys the act, too. He lets go of Cullen's cock for a moment to kiss down its underside, moustache tickling the sensitive skin and making Cullen twitch. It is so _good_. The goodness of it and the shock of the pleasure disarms him. If Dorian is a blood mage, now would be the perfect time for him to take control of Cullen's mind. Fortunately, Dorian seems content to merely control Cullen's body.

     Which is... unacceptable. Cullen bites his lip, focuses his will, and yet it is still like ripping open a wound to pull Dorian away from himself. But he wants something else. He wants, Dorian wants... "On the bed," Cullen says between pants, tugging Dorian up by his hair and practically shoving him across the room. "Now, _now_." Dorian stumbles a little and Cullen grabs him by the arm, partly to support him and partly to force him forward and partly so that he can keep contact with the mage's sweet skin. He is half mindless, unable to think of anything but pleasure, and now Dorian is on his hands and knees beneath him

     _as a mage should be_

     oh Maker no that is a terrible thought but Dorian is mewling as Cullen kneels over him and peels away the trousers and licks down his spine. But he is not a monster, so he forces himself to say against that skin, "Have you, is there, I need." Dorian grunts and reaches away somewhere and something cold bumps against Cullen's arm. He flinches away violently, then realizes it is a small pottery jar with a wide cork lid. His fingers shake as he pries the lid loose -- it takes three tries -- and scoops out something thick and oily and smelling of mint. (It is the same massage liniment he uses. He laughs, hysterically.) Dorian fumbles for the jar too -- " _Venhedis_ , I will _die_ at this rate!" -- but Cullen has slathered the stuff over himself and ground his way into Dorian by the time he finishes the sentence.

     It's not the way it should be done, he knows. It has been some time since he's done this, carefree days in Kinloch before The End, one night of despair in a backroom of the Hanged Man with the bartender whose name he can no longer recall, but he's aware that he should go slower, give the mage time to adjust, for he is not a small man. But something in him _likes_ Dorian's hiss of pain and the way the mage stiffens beneath him. Something in him grabs Dorian's hips and pulls them back and holds them in place and then demands that he set a punishing pace, forcing Dorian to accept him or be damned, making clear with his body that what the mage wants is utterly irrelevant. Gentleness is beyond him. It is chance that has the mirror in the corner turned toward the bed -- maybe. Maybe Dorian likes to watch. It is definitely chance that has Cullen look up and see:

     A Templar, for that is what he shall always be, vows or not. In armor and nearly fully-clothed, kneeling behind a naked mage who whimpers and twitches beneath him. One of Cullen's hands is on the back of Dorian's head. The other has gripped finger-marks into Dorian's hip, holding him steady through the rough rutting movements.

     Andraste save him. Cullen falters to a halt, his hand slipping off Dorian's head as he stares at himself. At the flushed face, the cruel eyes, the savage movements. Like Karras. _Look at what he has done_. Like Karras.

     Then Dorian unfurls upward, graceful as a dancer. He leans back against Cullen's breastplate, reaching up and back to cup Cullen's cheek. His eyes are half-lidded, hazy with delirium; his mouth is an open pant. He turns his head and nuzzles Cullen's mouth, blatantly soliciting kisses. Cullen cannot drag his eyes away from the mirror, but in the narrow piece of glass Dorian pulls Cullen's face to one side enough so that their mouths meet, Dorian all but drinking the heat from his lips. Automatically Cullen slides a hand around him, smoothing down the flat planes of his belly, and Dorian's hand covers his, guiding it along the lines of the tattoo, down the line of dark hair beneath his navel. The mage's cock is thick and brown and eager, but the glans is a shocking pink above the roll of his foreskin. An exclamation of pleasure, to which Dorian drags Cullen's hand so that he may answer its unspoken demand.

     Pleasure. _Want_. This mage, Dorian, _wants_ him.

     Maker, it is not like what Karras did at all.

     With a groan, Cullen folds his arms around Dorian and takes his mouth and rides him steady, and strokes and strokes him until the mage is uttering soft, ragged sounds, blurting his name in a voice that breaks and begs, rutting back against him. When Cullen draws his free hand up the lines of magic -- which are glowing colors now, warm and tingling, Maker he should have guessed that the tattoo was somehow erotic too -- and stirs circles 'round Dorian's nipple again, Dorian groans through his nose and bucks against him and spends in quick dribbles over Cullen's fingers. It is not what a mage should do. He should not _enjoy_ a Templar's rutting. It is not the horror that Cullen has craved up 'til now, and for which he has feared and hated himself.

     It is so very, very much better than that.

     When the need breaks like a fever and the pleasure washes through Cullen, it is a benediction. He buries his face in Dorian's neck and sobs as his hips buck and his balls throb and his thoughts dissolve and distill into one freshly-burned image to overlay the old awful one, and one near-prayer: _Thank you._

     He does not offer this thanks to Andraste, or the Maker. He does not even say it aloud. The mage is arrogant enough already.

     But he eases Dorian down, though his own hands shake and he can barely keep himself upright in the aftermath of such a powerful release. A part of Cullen wants to dump the mage in a heap on the bedsheets. Just fasten his trousers and walk away, to let the mage know that he is nothing... But it is suddenly easier to ignore this part of himself. He goes to the nightstand instead and brings back the damp washing-cloth to smooth over Dorian's body. He's left so many bruises, red crescents, and one bite that looks to have broken skin near the juncture of the shoulder and neck. (He does not remember inflicting that. He is glad he has not done worse.) Upon the canvas of Dorian's skin and amid the calligraphy of his tattoo, these new marks are merely decorative accents. Still, he sits on the bed beside Dorian's prone body and touches the edge of the livid bite, frowning.

     Dorian, who has lain lazily passive while Cullen mopped him up, opens one eye. Cullen asks, "Have you any healing talent?"

     "Not a whit," Dorian murmurs into his folded arms. "Tends to mesh poorly with necromancy. The walking dead aren't supposed to _last_ , see." He falls silent, and Cullen remains silent beside him, still fingering the wound. His jaw is tight. 

     Dorian lifts an eyebrow. "Are you thinking of _apologizing_ , Commander? Do Templars even do that to mages?"

     Cullen tries to flex his jaw and cannot, not even to speak. He wants to say that most Templars would not apologize to a mage, but _he_ is different. Yet he cannot make himself say the words. That means he isn't different. He looks away and takes his hand off Dorian's skin, reluctantly.

     Dorian utters a mortal sigh. "You _have_ noticed, haven't you, that I haven't set your hair afire?"

     _You do something I don't like and I'll set fire to your hair._ It is the closest thing they have to a term of safe-making, between them. And it is meaningful. So meaningful that Cullen manages to say, "Yes. And... I would never Silence you. I should not have said that, earlier."

     The mage's eyebrows rise nearly into his hairline. After a moment, he rolls over onto his side, propping his head on one fist, eying Cullen contemplatively. Then he says, " _If_ you are willing to shed that damned breastplate, you may remain here for the night."

     Dorian has said this in a magnanimous tone, but this is not part of their game. It is... Cullen is suddenly chilled all over. To lie alone with a mage, vulnerable? To dream with a mage beside him, knowing that in the next dream over demons congregate and tempt and might, just might, possess? Or, worst of all, to risk that mage seeing his own dreams and learning what horrors live in Cullen's soul?

     He shudders and shakes his head, curtly. He is aware that Dorian might read this as revulsion toward _him_ \-- and indeed, Dorian's smile falters and he draws back a little and there is a feeling of brittle hurt in the narrow space between their bodies. "Had your fun, then?" he says, too-lightly. "Fair enough. Let me know if ever want to play again, this or chess."

     No. "No," Cullen says. "I cannot..."

     The walls of Kinloch, breathing and suppurating around him. A cage whose walls he cannot see. Demons' claws rending his mind -- He catches his breath, sharply, and has to shut his eyes and whisper that _blessed are those who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter_. And this is worse, because now Dorian thinks Cullen is naming him corrupt and wicked, and he hears the mage mutter an angry curse and sit up, perhaps to invite him to leave. No, Cullen has hurt too many mages already. He cannot do it again, not to _this_ mage. Dorian deserves the truth.

     He whispers with his eyes shut: "I do not _want_ to fear you."

     Stiff surprise, beside him. A shift of the covers and the weight of the bed. He imagines Dorian's hand coming toward his shoulder, imagines it dripping with _compassion_ , and he _cannot_. He shoves to his feet and is halfway across the room before Dorian catches him up with a soft, "Maker, what did they do to you?" And he falters to a halt.

     Too much. Too much. There is no game anymore to make things safe between them. There is too much caring in Dorian's voice. _This_ is why mages and Templars should never copulate; now Dorian's purity has been tainted. Cullen can no longer trust this mage to kill him as he should.

     His mouth suddenly aches for lyrium. His heart aches for something entirely different, though he knows he will never be worthy of anything but duty and penance. "You should have stayed away from me," Cullen says again, bitterly. Then he flees into the night, aching and alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, there'll be another chapter. It'll have to wait for another slow day at work, tho'. Also, "term of safe-making" = Cullenese for "safeword".


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Please," Dorian blurts. "Please, you can hurt me as much as you want."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No sex in this one, unless frustrated masturbation and disturbing fantasies count.

     Cullen avoids him.

     It becomes maddening, as the weeks pass. Dorian is unused to rejection -- exploitation, certainly, mutual if not downright friendly, which is how things tend to go in Tevinter. He's had paramours rut with him and walk off while he still trembled with the aftershocks; at least Cullen stayed for awhile, and stroked him to stillness, and worried over his bruises. But then to leave after that... Why, it's simply ridiculous. A man who's going to go that far ought to at least want to tumble again.

     But Cullen does not want another tumble. That... hurts. Unexpectedly. Dorian does not go to his office; he doesn't want to _pursue_ the man, because that violates the rules of their game and because it is pathetic besides. But he sends a messenger once with an invitation for a chess game, and the messenger brings back a stilted note saying that Cullen appreciates the offer but cannot spare the time. So there's that. And Dorian glimpses him in the corridors of Skyhold sometimes, and meets his gaze once or twice as they cross paths while Dorian's on his way to the tavern and Cullen's heading back to his... belfry, or whatever it is. Cullen looks away faster than a schoolboy with a crush. It would be cute, if. If.

     Dorian should be glad the bastard doesn't want more. This is what he tells himself, especially in the first day or two after as he nurses his bruises and has to get a salve for the bite on his shoulder when it chafes under his clothing. Always the problem with bedding a man who wants to kill you; wounds are unavoidable. But as the pain fades and he lies awake in the mornings, remembering the soft needful sounds that Cullen made and the way he so eagerly lapped at Dorian's nipples, one would think that wearing bright gold rings in them would send a clear message that Dorian adores nipple-play but it's remarkable the number of lovers who simply ignore the bloody things, might as well have hung cowbells for all the good the rings do -- He sighs and tries to resign himself to never having that pleasure again. Never feeling that heavy, thick, marvelous cock, demanding his acceptance and forcing him toward orgasm whether he's ready for it or not. Never seeing those lovely hazel eyes watching him with such obviously horrific thoughts behind them; never feeling those long-fingered hands on him, full of mostly-restrained violence...

     _Maker, I should just be glad I'm in one piece_ , he thinks around these morning memories. Then he puts his hands beneath the covers and stirs his nipples and grips his cock and groans to the imagined feel of teeth piercing his flesh.

     And when he is spent, he wonders what he did wrong.

     It's a bad business. Bad enough that he feels old and ill, though he is neither; bad enough that the Iron Bull stops flirting with him. In his cups one night at the tavern, he asks about it, and the Bull just lifts an eyebrow and says, "Eh, I'm not what you want right now." (Dorian hates that this is true. Damned ox.) Bad enough that Leliana stops nearby one afternoon as Dorian is scanning a library shelf without actually reading the words on the spines. He glances at her uneasily, wondering if she's going to say _I told you so_ or just knife him and be done with it.

     "Perhaps I should not have worried for _Cullen_ ," she drawls, and turns away before he can muster a reply.

     The worst of it is when he dreams. He is used to desire demons; they are of course his greatest weakness, and whenever he is in the Fade they follow him about like puppies, always dangling things he craves before him. His father's approval, his society's enlightenment, that second-tier focus spell he always has trouble with and will master if it bloody kills him. They rarely tempt him with actual lust objects because it's too transparent; he laughed the first time one of them attempted to seduce him in the form of Magister Nivvus' handsome younger son, and clearly the word of his reaction spread through the Fade because they never tried it again. But the first time one of them appears as Cullen before Dorian, he almost mistakes the greed in its eyes for the hunger that fills the real Cullen, and... well. He realizes his error the instant their lips touch and the demon does not make love to his mouth the way Dorian desperately wants it to. The way Cullen does. Fortunately, fire burns as easily in the Fade as it does in the flesh.

     But it is his warning. This... yearning, this hurt that he feels, is becoming dangerous. He will need to confront it, overcome it, or... or he doesn't know. He just needs to do something about it.

     What, he does not know.

#

     It is his father who breaks him. And Trevelyan, that meddling well-meaning Circle-cowed _clod_ ; they ambush him and pressure him to talk, and the whole discussion leaves him so raw inside that he feels scoured. Halward apologizes -- apologizes! As if mere words can ever absolve what happened. It is worse than if the man had simply clouted Dorian over the head and dragged him back home in manacles. That, at least, he could have comfortably hated.

     Once they are back in Skyhold he beelines for the Herald's Rest and takes a booth in a shadowed corner and drinks a shot for every terrible lyric that fluttery-voiced bard sings. Within an hour his back teeth are floating, as they say here in this benighted part of the world; by midnight he is so drunk that he cannot see clearly. By means of a will that has been trained by the finest mages in Minrathous, he manages to make it outside in time to void his bladder on a bush rather than himself. He's rather proud that he doesn't throw up, though this of course means he just gets drunker as the liquor leaves his belly and enters his blood.

     He cannot remember how to get to his own room. He tries, stumbling, and thinking that there are rather more steps than there should be, and all of them are too damned high. But this is not his room; there's nothing here but unsalvaged rubble, barrels of nails, fallen lumber. This must be the room two doors down; damnation. He tries again. No, somehow he has gotten onto the western parapets and is looking down a thousand-foot drop at the ground far, far, far below. It's cold, too -- always so cold, always awful here in this shithole to which he has exiled himself. Cold and frightening to be in a place where everyone thinks mages are the next thing to demons; cold and so lonely that sometimes he thinks he will die of that alone. It is an easy thing to cover the loneliness with flippant remarks and his natural arrogance by day, but here, under the cold moonlight and with the wind piercing his clothing like daggers, he has no defenses. He weeps, and is for once too drunk to be ashamed of such effeminate behavior -- but even this ceaseless misery is better than being back home, trapped in an unwanted marriage with his personality bound in chains.

     "Messere!" Someone grabs Dorian, and only because he's too drunk to muster his magic does she avoid third-degree burns. "Messere, surely it's not as bad as all that!"

     He blinks, realizing that it is one of the guards, and realizing also that she has pulled him back from the parapet before he could fall over to his death.

     "Everything's fine," he says, shaking off her hand, adjusting his clothing, and wiping the tears and snot from his face, which rather undercuts his attempt to reassure. "Absolutely fine. Just had a bit too much to drink, is all. Er, thank you." She nods, watching him uneasily, and he takes particular care to turn away from the wall, not back toward it, as he walks away.

     Then his door is before him, and he prays that he did not lock it because he is not at all certain he can manage a key at the moment, and anyway it isn't as if he has anything worth stealing except a useless Altus medallion and his other pants, which no one seems to want to get into except him. But thankfully the door is open, so he stumbles in and over to his bed and fumbles with the covers, because it's bloody _cold_ , but they defy his fumblings. Wasn't his blanket thicker than this? He bartered away his other shoes for a good one.

     "Dorian."

     Well, there's the problem: someone's put a damned paperweight on his blanket. Who could have done such a thing, crept into his room and covered the bed with office supplies? He'll boil the blood in their veins.

     " _Dorian_."

     Now he's hallucinating Cullen's voice. He shakes his head, reaches for the blanket again, and a hand grabs his, hard enough to hurt. This clears his head somewhat. He looks up and Cullen is beautiful, and angry, which is one of the things that makes him so beautiful. And he is _here_ , which is best of all.

     "Why did you leave?" Dorian blurts. It is not what he means to say. He has _never_ meant to say this, because he is a man grown and he can endure the lumps of his own torrid affairs, but he _hurts_ and he has tried to understand why and he cannot. "Was it because I saw what they did to you?"

     Cullen's eyes widen, then narrow. They are hazel, a marvelous color even now when they have begun to fill with disgust. "You are drunk."

     "Yes, yes." Dorian waves this off irritably. He's drunk more often than these people even know. "I'm not a _southern_ mage, remember, I'm _allowed_ to make a useless mess of myself. Or to let you make a mess of me... but you _left_. Commander -- " He tries to reach for the man's face, but Cullen makes an irritated sound and grabs his hand. It is awful.

     "Maker's breath." Cullen sighs, coming around the desk and taking his arm. "Can you even walk straight? I'll summon someone to take you to your room."

     It is awful. Stung, Dorian opts to be snotty. "Very _well_ ," he says, attempting to draw himself up but succeeding only in stumbling and nearly falling, held up only by Cullen's tightening hand. "But make certain they are female, if you please, because if you don't want me, then I mean to invite the first damned man I see into my bed. Maybe even a woman just this once; it's _cold_."

     Cullen stiffens, or stiffens more anyway. "I rather doubt you would be much good to any lover, as you are."

     Dorian rather doubts it too, not that it really matters. No one wants him, the Tevinter, the monster from the north, the slayer of Andraste reborn, the walking proof that mages need no Templars to be decent people. "What do _you_ care? I'll find my own way, as I always do." He yanks his arm away from Cullen's hand and turns to go, weaving only a little. Cullen catches him before he's gone five steps, and then the world blurs, and suddenly he finds himself hefted about the man's furry shoulders in a fire brigade-style carry. "What -- You -- "

     "Be silent," Cullen snaps. "And hold still, or I may drop you. I am considering doing that regardless."

     He actually climbs a ladder with Dorian slung over his shoulders, which would be terrifying even if the drink had not already lent the world a certain vertiginous instability. And then Dorian is in a bed, and there is a _blanket_ , oh thank Andraste, and Cullen is leaning over him with the stars and clouds framing his head, which is strange and wrong yet somehow precisely as it should be.  

     "Please," Dorian blurts. "Please, you can hurt me as much as you want. Just stay."

     Cullen flinches back, the disgust turning into something worse -- horror, that Dorian should ask this, or that Dorian should think so of him. (Or perhaps he is just disgusted that Dorian has _offered_ , when what Cullen really wants is to _take_.) But then Cullen sets his jaw and turns away for a moment. There's a nightstand nearby, with a covered pitcher and cups on it. Dorian thinks, _The lyrium, the withdrawal pangs are worse when he's dehydrated, that is why,_ and then Cullen is holding a cup to his lips. "Drink."

     "I have already done entirely too much of that, serrah," Dorian says, gravely, and belches.

     " _Drink_." It is a bark of command, so sharp that it echoes from the room's walls. Dorian jumps, for a moment thinking, _Meredith's Fist_ , because that is what they call Cullen in the stories. Dorian thinks he should probably argue, and not let some Templar think he can command an Altus of a fine old family, but that makes him think of his father and that crumbles his pride to nothing and he opens his mouth and meekly drinks.

     When he is done, Cullen tucks him into bed with a gentleness that is completely at odds with the look on his face and the sharpness of his voice. "The chamber pot is across the room," he says, pulling the blanket up to Dorian's chin. "If you soil my bed, I will have yours taken from your room to replace it, and you may sleep in the library for all I care. Mind the hole in the floor." With that, he straightens to leave.

     The last is nonsensical and Dorian dismisses it. It is the _for all I care_ that his mind latches on to, salt on the wounds that his father has left in him. He rolls over and curls up beneath the blanket, which is so warm that it leaves him nothing but the misery to think about.

     "I should have just let him finish that blood ritual," he says bitterly. The steps moving away from him stop, but what does it matter? Cullen does not want him. No one wants him, not unless they can _change_ him. "Let him mutilate my mind. Screaming on the inside, screaming from the parapets, it's all the same, isn't it?" And at least then he would not be so alone.

     Silence falls in the room like starlight. In Minrathous he would hear the songs of frogs in the garden below his window, by this time of night. Here in the cold mountains, nothing lives that sings at night. _Oh lovely, and I'm homesick, too._ But you can't go home again, as they say.

     Dorian's almost asleep when Cullen says, softly, "What did you mean, that you saw what they did to me?"

     Dorian had forgotten he was there. "Claw-scars on your soul," he murmurs into the pillow. It smells of Cullen and his traitor heart twists. "Something tore you half to shreds trying to get inside and possess you. Clearly would've had to kill you to succeed, though." Then he laughs, because that is just so Cullen.

     A long, slow breath, behind him. "I did not know that mages could see souls."

     Dorian blows a raspberry. " _Necromancers_ , not 'mages.' And maybe those corpse-sniffers in Nevarra can do it too, but they've no finesse. Who tried to put a demon in you?"

     "Blood mages," Cullen says. His voice is oddly inflectionless. "In Fereldan's Circle."

     Weren't Templars supposed to kill blood mages down here? Well, maybe they missed a few. "It was my father, for me," Dorian says, which is not strictly true. He didn't think Halward meant him possessed, but a demon was surely involved somewhere down the line. Where else could one learn spells to break and reset Dorian's mind, like a bone that has grown wrong? "But he said he was _sorry_." He laughs, and tastes bile. Maker, he hopes he doesn't vomit. "I suppose that makes everything better, doesn't it?"

     Cullen doesn't answer. Dorian drifts again, and eventually the starlight and warmth claim him. He's glad he drank so much. Because he did, there are no dreams.

#

     In the morning Dorian's disoriented, but only a little. Not the first time he's woken up from a drunken stupor in an unknown place, after all. Usually he has company when this happens; apparently he's a flirty drunk. What really confuses him is the massive hole in the ceiling, the nearly-as-large hole in the floor, and the fact that there's nothing in the room but a bed and a chest and a nightstand and a washstand. And a small shrine to Andraste; who the Void lives here, a Chantry brother?

     He gets up and pisses into the chamber pot and scratches himself and wonders why there's so much puffiness around his eyes. He doesn't have a head -- inherited Mother's capacity for alcohol, conveniently -- but his mouth tastes of feet and there is a dull, empty ache inside him which is not hunger. Well, what else is new.

     The only way to get out of the room is a _ladder_. He climbs down it and then stands at its foot, dimly astonished to see Cullen standing over his desk, examining reports. Then Dorian understands what has happened, vaguely remembers snippets of conversation from the night before, and -- ah. How pathetic Cullen must think him. This is much, much worse than waking up with an ugly stranger and a sore arse.

     So he sighs, and Cullen looks up. He looks tired, probably because Dorian took his bed, more likely because he stays up to work all night like this on a normal basis. "I did not soil your bed," Dorian says, wearily, "and my apologies for occupying it, and your time. Won't happen again." He turns to shuffle toward the door.

     "Dorian."

     Dorian waves him off. "Maker, don't look at me, I'm a mess." The kohl has smeared everywhere and probably ringed his eyes like a lemur's.

     Cullen sighs. "Mages should not drink as much as you do."

     _What?_ It's true, of course. No one should drink as much as Dorian does. But it's too much on top of Halward, on top of Trevelyan's betrayal, and suddenly Dorian is furious that these words should come at him from Cullen, of all people. He's spent weeks _hurting_ over this man.

     " _Mages_ ," he snaps, rounding on Cullen, "are _people_ , as you southerners continually seem to forget. We have bad days like anyone else. I'll thank you not to judge _mine_."

     "I would not have, had you not attempted to lie down on my desk last night," Cullen retorts.

     Dorian covers embarrassment with anger. "Please don't flatter yourself, Commander. I simply misjudged my direction, and thought this room was mine." Rather nastily he adds, "I wouldn't have chosen your bed, thank you; mine is warmer, lacking the _natural skylight_ of yours."

     "Resources can be better spent elsewhere. We slept rougher than that on the trek from Haven to here." Cullen straightens, shrugging his shoulder-mane and resting a hand on his sword-hilt in a habitual sort of way. He looks upright and majestic and gorgeous even after a night of no sleep. Dorian hates him and lusts for him helplessly, and the grate of both makes him even more irritable.

     "This isn't the wilderness, and we aren't _refugees_ anymore," Dorian says. Well, yells. "We live in a castle, with -- banners, and things. There's an entire staff of people here who can repair your roof, fix that hole in your floor..." He looks around the office, finally noticing the chaise longue in the corner, fortunately covered in a sheet because it's buried under debris from the hole in Cullen's bedroom floor. "...clean this _mess_ up! Are you not the Commander of the Inquisition? Why do you live like a beggar?"

     Cullen blinks and stares at the chaise as if noticing for the first time that it is there. He has the grace to look abashed for a moment. "I am used to having only a bed in a crowded barracks, or a small cell in a former prison," he says, quietly. "This whole tower seems luxury enough already, to me. But... perhaps you have a point about my station, and appearances."

     "So very happy to help." Dorian offers a sarcastic bow, then turns to go.

     "Why did you come here, Dorian?"

     The question makes him stop, hand on the door-latch. Why is Cullen asking? "What?"

     He hears movement behind him, and turns back with a flinch. But Cullen has only moved in front of his desk, leaning back against it with his arms folded. His expression is unreadable. "You could have stumbled into anyone's room, in the condition you were in last night." Cullen shrugs. "You could have stumbled off the ramparts and down the mountain. You came here."

     "Because I was _drunk_ ," Dorian says, forcing a laugh. "Once during my apprenticeship, Alexius found me asleep in the laboratory, having apparently spent the evening successfully running an alchemical test. Though I didn't remember what hypothesis I'd been attempting to disprove, so the results were useless -- "

     "You came _to me_."

     Oh, for Andraste's sake. "And you walked out on me," Dorian says. He keeps his voice light, but the words come out clipped, edged. He can't help it. "After quite a lovely shag, no less. But you've made it abundantly clear that you have no interest in continuing our liaison, Commander, and I do not go where I'm unwanted." Except. He has. His face heats. "Not when I'm sober, anyhow, which would be why I'm leaving now."

     Cullen takes a deep breath, and to Dorian's surprise, looks away. "It is... difficult for me to trust mages," he says. He says it heavily, with the air of someone divulging a great and terrible secret. "I have been trying harder, of late."

     It is both a total non-sequitur and so glaringly obvious that Dorian stares at him. "Well, bully for you."

     A muscle flexes in Cullen's jaw. "You are angry."

     _I am hurt_ , comes the thought to Dorian's mind. But he will never say that aloud. He lets the anger speak instead, flaring his nostrils, firmly reining in the magic that sparks beneath his skin in response. "I can do better than you, you know," he snarls. "The Iron Bull wants me. I could even have Trevelyan if I chose -- not that I do, the man is a mealymouthed bore however lovely his arse is, but no doubt that is inevitable when one goes from being a gilded-cage prisoner to Andraste's understudy. He'd be a much more prestigious catch, though, than some half-mad lyrium addict with a predilection for simulated mage rape! I -- "

     "Last night," Cullen says, pinning him with a glare, "you said, 'you can hurt me as much as you want.'"

     Dorian falters silent. He did? Then he remembers saying it, feeling it, wanting it. "I... don't remember that," he lies.

     Cullen's angry now, too -- and, oh, that lurking threat is back in his gaze. Dorian's heart catches, for he never thought to see this again, and he isn't sure he's glad to see it now. "You came to me, inebriated and vulnerable. I doubt you could've even mustered much magic, in that state. I could have had you ten times before morning, if I'd wanted."

     That... really shouldn't excite Dorian, but it does. He fights it. "But you didn't," he says, clipping the words. "Want."

     Cullen gazes at him for a long, silent moment. Dorian can't begin to guess what's in his head, and it's ridiculous that he's even trying. Ridiculous that he's still standing here, hoping for... what? He should be hoping for nothing. _You should have stayed away from me._ Yes, he should get the Void out of here and never come back, not even when he's drunk.

     The door is right behind him. He does not turn back to it. Why doesn't he? He should. And when Cullen finally gets up from the desk and comes toward him, Dorian knows he should flee. But he does not.

     So Cullen plants a hand on the wall above his head, and leans in, and it is completely wrong that Dorian's breath quickens.

     "I did," Cullen says, his voice low and suddenly intimate. "Want."

     Dorian has to swallow. It makes him look weak, but. Can't be helped. He takes a step back -- but the door is behind him, and he bumps up against it. "Then why didn't you?" _Have me ten times before dawn_. Maker. He knows the answer to his own question, too: because drunk, Dorian could not have fought back. Cullen needs that, for some reason. Even if Dorian does not fight, he needs the _possibility_ of it. He is a man of violence; perhaps the thrill of prospective death excites him.

     "Perhaps I want, _now_ ," Cullen says.

     _Oh, yes._ "Oh, no," Dorian says, to Cullen and to himself. "I won't be used and _discarded_ , Commander, whenever you have an attack of propriety or... or when you don't want to take off your armor, or whatever whim -- " Cullen is lifting a hand to his face. Dorian swats it away. "I'm a fucking _person_! Get that through your addled head!"

     Cullen's gaze flickers, and he goes still for a moment. Then an expression that is shockingly human, soft and compassionate and even with a little self-deprecating smile, crosses his face. "Yes," he says. "You have made that abundantly clear." He pauses. Sobers. "I am sorry."

     Dorian stares at him in utter confusion. Cullen's thumb grazes his bottom lip. Then his fingers brush against Dorian's cheek, where stubble has grown overnight, and smooth along his jaw, and trace down a tendon in his neck. This makes Dorian shiver; inadvertently he lifts his chin. Cullen bends, and for a moment there is the brush of lips against Dorian's throat, and the flex of fingers in his hair. It is astonishingly gentle, and it disarms Dorian completely.

     After a moment, Cullen sighs and straightens and says against Dorian's ear, "I'm too tired to do what I want with you, right now."

     Dorian swallows. He rather smells of a distillery at the moment, himself. "I haven't said I wanted to do _anything_ , with you," he says, attempting primness.

     "You have not. But you haven't set my hair afire, either." Cullen pushes fingers through Dorian's hair, mussing it horribly, though this can't possibly make it any worse. That look is in Cullen's eyes again, and Dorian is weak, so weak.

     He attempts to negotiate, nevertheless. "Perhaps I _might_ return tonight, after we've both had a chance to rest," he says. He means it to sound nonchalant. It doesn't. "Though I'd want you to take your armor off this time, if I did."

     "Perhaps I might." Cullen's fingers tighten in his hair, thought not enough to hurt -- just holding Dorian still. Against Dorian's ear, he whispers, "If you come back here, I'll hurt you as much as I want."

     _Oh, Mercy of Hessarian._

     Cullen then lets Dorian go, turning back to the desk as if he's said nothing untoward, and certainly nothing that might have left Dorian standing there with his heart dancing a jig in his chest and his mind stunned into silence by that whisper. Cullen's hit him with a lust-blast. Dorian wants to laugh, but it would just sound hysterical at this point.

     Cullen resumes work as if Dorian isn't there. A moment later the tower's other door opens, and an aide comes in to speak to him; there but for the grace of the Maker could have gone Dorian's dignity. The aide glances at Dorian once, puzzled that he's just standing there, and this galvanizes Dorian to flee, turning and wrenching open his door and hurrying back toward the main hall. He mumbles something vaguely polite to Solas and hides his face as he passes Vivienne, because he looks awful and she will know precisely what that means. Then he's in his room which is safe and neat and blissfully sun-warmed, and he throws the lock and curls into the bed and does not stop trembling for at least an hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be at least one more chapter. At least.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I want silence from you," Cullen says.

     The want lurks in his mind, like a demon.

     It has been there for weeks. Cullen has pushed it aside 'til now, shoved it into that corner within himself which is set aside for unwanted impulses; previously only the lyrium cravings dwelt there. Now those have company. On the worst days the two aches have conspired to torment him -- pain from the addiction, and _find Dorian, take him, he is eager for you, that will ease your pain_ from the other direction. He's staved off the lyrium cramps once or twice by touching himself, breathing deeply, and letting the mirror-image of himself on Dorian, _in_ Dorian, guide his hand until relief came. But nothing has been able to counteract Cullen's craving for Dorian himself.

     But Dorian knows the danger, Cullen sees now. Marvel, Maker, at the world Your neglect has made -- a world in which the scion of a Tevinter magister understands what Cullen has endured better than his fellow Templars. And with a worse betrayal: Dorian's own father used blood magic on him? At least Cullen's tormentors had no love for him, beforehand.

     So Dorian understands. Which is why Cullen wakes from his nap that evening full of want, his muscles tight, his skin heated and oversensitive, even his fingers tingling for the phantom feel of soft nobleman skin. Will he come? There is a chance the mage will rethink the matter, conclude rightfully that Cullen is a madman and a monster, and cut his losses. Cullen is _glad_ this chance exists, for it is the thing that will keep Cullen from ever abusing him. Cullen will never _not_ be afraid of himself. But if he can trust Dorian to fight back, to protect himself against Cullen if Cullen ever... If Cullen should ever...

     He closes his eyes, tightens his hands into fists until the nails dig at his palms, and prays fiercely. He will never. _Never_.

     But if he does, Dorian can keep himself safe.

     Downstairs, the work Cullen has asked his aides to complete for him is done. He asks one to speak to the masons about repairing the roof and floor of his bedchamber whenever there is time. The aide looks at him wryly and says it will be done within the week, which tells Cullen that more people than Dorian have wondered why Cullen lives as he does. That's a little embarrassing. But Cullen then gives careful instructions that he not be disturbed that night for anything short of an imminent attack, and the aides display equal pleasure that their famously workaholic commander is finally taking a night off. They glance at each other in their delight, by which he knows they've been talking about him. Worse and worse, but it proves that Dorian was right about appearances and their importance.

     That done, Cullen heads to the bathhouse. It's early enough that no one else is around as he scrubs himself -- which is good, because even with the nearly-icy water he is not flaccid, and even a full dunking barely dents the heat within him. He tucks himself away discreetly but leaves his shirt off for the walk back across the courtyard, ignoring the bemused stares of his fellow Inquisition members. A part of him wonders if they can see the need in him -- if they have worried for a man who so obviously could do with a bit of companionship, who is strong and relatively young and from a good family and yet never flirts, never carouses, and in fact carefully avoids intimate situations with others. Are they conspiring to steer potential lovers his way? Is there a betting pool -- for he has been discreet; only Leliana seems to have guessed -- on when the Iron Lion might finally break his carnal fast?

     They don't know. They don't know _anything_ about him. They have no idea what is inside him. They don't fear him as they should, or none of them would ever want to be alone with him.

     _Dorian knows, though._

     Yes. He does. But will he come tonight?

     Back in the tower Cullen is restless, fidgety. Full night has fallen outside, and the jumping of the candleflames bothers him. The sound of the wind from the upper level of the tower bothers him. He tries to look at the papers on his desk, concentrate on work while he waits (and hopes and hopes, oh please Maker, let Dorian come to him tonight), and the words jump with the flickering light, meaningless. The candles dwindle. An hour passes, and Cullen begins to despair.

     Then the latch on the east-facing door clicks. Dorian slips inside, and Cullen stares at him as a starving man beholds at a suddenly-appearing feast.

     "So, it's all very nice, this -- " the mage begins, sidling in. Then he looks astonished, his words trailing off and step slowing as he realizes Cullen's standing there in his trousers and boots and nothing else. The heat that fills Dorian's gaze is gratifying, but the fact that he does _not_ smile, does _not_ comment, only lifts his eyes back to Cullen's face with an expression that is almost grave, is more so. He knows what it means to Cullen to make himself vulnerable before a mage.

     He sidles to a stop. "Well. You do look... rested." Only then does the side of his mouth curve up in a smirk. "By a remarkable coincidence, so am I."

     Cullen comes around the desk, stopping himself from falling upon the mage only by an act of supreme will. He makes himself go to the doors first, and turn the lock on first one and then the other. His aides are probably outside the north door; they are as much workaholics as he, and one or two of them will no doubt make it a personal mission to see that their commander remains undisturbed for the night. But they do not matter.

     No. They do. Cullen knows precisely what he needs, of a sudden.

     "I want silence from you," Cullen says. He's still facing the door. His own voice sounds raw, hoarse with need, as he speaks against the ancient wood. "Say nothing -- not my name, not a protest, not a curse. If you do, this ends." He turns to look at Dorian, who's watching him with one eyebrow lifted. "Do you understand?"

     Dorian actually gives this a think-over. Cullen is glad to see how he folds his arms, shifts his weight, decides whether he feels like obeying Cullen's demand in this. "Are you certain?" Dorian asks after a moment. His lips quirk. "I'm told I have a rather clever mouth."

     "If I haven't filled it, keep it idle."

     Dorian's breath catches. It's difficult to tell, but Cullen thinks he has flushed. "An interesting proposition indeed." Then, at long last, he bows at the waist, with a flourish and the tap of one toe that is probably some sort of veiled Tevinter insult. But it is also acquiescence.

     Cullen can no longer help himself. He goes to Dorian, pulls him up, takes hold of his head in both hands, and finds his mouth again, re-introduces himself to it, moves in and makes himself comfortable. Dorian opens for him and clutches at Cullen's hips and steps closer as if he _wants_ this, as if he _likes_ the things that Cullen does to him, even though Cullen does so much that is awful. After several moments Cullen slides his tongue out of Dorian's mouth and pulls back to search the mage's face. Dorian's eyes are hazy when he finally opens them, but there is no revulsion in them. Only something that might -- might -- be yearning.

     Cullen cups his cheek. The mage blinks, his eyes widening slightly. Ah -- so it is tenderness that stops his smirk? Good. Very good.

     "Come," Cullen says. He takes the mage's hand and pulls him toward the chaise longue that has been revealed in a corner, now that Cullen's staff have cleaned up the debris that was on it and removed its covering cloth. It is a beautiful, sturdy, massive old thing of mahogany and firm cushioning. The aides have thrown a slightly gaudy, gold-dyed cloth of crushed velvet over it for the time being, because the upholstery has some motheaten patches and needs repair. But in the meantime, Dorian chuckles at the sight, eying Cullen cheekily when Cullen throws him a warning glance. A laugh is not a word, but it skirts the edge of Cullen's demand for silence. Cullen supposes he is owed that one, though, so he will let it pass for now.

     Then the mage stands passive while Cullen undresses him and drops his clothes to the floor. Dorian balks only once -- to stoop again for his tunic, and to pull something from a pocket which turns out to be a small ornate flask of viscous liquid whose purpose Cullen intuits immediately, even without Dorian's eloquent eyebrow-quirk. Cullen takes it and sets it in easy reach and then undresses himself. Dorian sighs and moves to lie down on the chaise, shamelessly ogling Cullen and shamelessly writhing a little at the feel of the velvet. _He makes cheap cloth look like spun gold_ , Cullen thinks, before lying down to take the mage into his arms.

     Dorian tastes of tea this time, and sweetening, and he feels of muscle and tension and the ever-so-faint thrum of magic that rests beneath all mages' skin and which a Templar can sense if he gets close enough. Cullen is on him now, chest to chest and belly to belly, hands on the curves of him and fingers denting the flat of his skin, and it is exquisite. He sends his tongue into the mage's mouth again and again, expedition after expedition, claiming more territory as his. Meanwhile he sends his hands elsewhere as explorers to map the boundaries of the realm that is Dorian's flesh. When he finally lets go of Dorian's mouth, the mage is panting, pleading with his body, so Cullen slides a hand up his flank and grazes teeth along his collarbone to answer the requests. A head tilted back: Cullen nibbles along the tendons of his neck. A soft gasp and arched back: Cullen finds one of his nipples and tongues it firmly, then flicks at it lightly -- all the while listening. But though the mage makes strangled sounds around the fist that he has crammed against his mouth, he does not cry out. He does not beg for more. Not with his mouth, anyway.

     So Cullen tests him further by hooking one of Dorian's legs over his shoulder as an anchor and kissing his way along the under-ridge of Dorian's cock. Dorian's hips buck, just a little: a plea, but a quiet one. Why is it quiet? Cullen curls his tongue 'round the smooth pink glans of him, slides fingers down the length of his shaft to measure and explore, massages his balls gently upward.

     Abruptly Dorian is tense, which makes no sense given that Cullen has been here before and ridden him to madness. Cullen experiments with suckling, drawing the length of Dorian's cock into his mouth. Dorian breathes harder, twitching a little. Too tepid a reaction for what Cullen wants. Ah, but wait: Dorian has shown a marked preference for being taken, and not taking. And Cullen was trained to read mages' bodies, once. He knows when they're trying to hide a weakness.

     So he presses both of Dorian's legs up and back, and bends the mage's body for convenience, and tongues the delicate skin under his balls. The way that Dorian stiffens tells Cullen he's onto something. He smells here of soap and perfumed powder; did he hope for this? Fear that Cullen might be squeamish, somehow, after seven years in the Gallows? Foolish, foolish mage.

     So Cullen bears down on his legs so that Dorian cannot squirm or escape, and then he makes feast of the mage's nether hole, flicking and probing and diverting only long enough to nuzzle his balls or bite the invitingly round curve of his ass before returning, unrelenting.

     And _this_ was what he wanted: Dorian sucks in a harsh breath, his eyes going wide and his body taut, and he almost breaks Cullen's rule again by groaning through his nose. It isn't words, but it is a _sound_. Cullen sets his jaw and lifts his head to glare down at him.

     "Oh, p -- " Dorian starts to beg. His eyes are half glazed; already he is nearly gone from himself. But some part of him remembers, Cullen sees, and then he twitches all over and clacks his teeth shut loudly enough that the sound echoes faintly. But he _stares_ at Cullen so, his chest heaving, his mouth loose and lips wet, his eyes saying _please_ even if his teeth are still clenched tight against the word.

     It is... not what Cullen has craved in his fantasies of taking a mage. But Cullen's fantasies are wrong, and this is. Intriguing. And Cullen is still in control, is he not? The mage is still _his_ to do with as he pleases. Right now, Cullen wants to test Dorian's limits.

     So he slips one hand around to grasp Dorian's cock, and slides the other along his side until he can thumb one ringed nipple in delicate little circles, and meanwhile he returns to his sumptuous repast.

     The mage lasts only a moment before he crumbles beneath the combined assault. When he comes apart, it is total: his limbs go loose and his toes splay and his torso convulses and the only reason he makes no sound as he spills all over himself is because the pleasure has unvoiced him. His mouth is open, but he cannot draw breath to to scream. It is beautiful. Cullen grasps the base of Dorian's cock and tugs him gently to draw out the fullness of his pleasure, and it _destroys_ the mage; he is helpless, a thing in Cullen's hands, choking and barely breathing and completely done. When Cullen lets him go, he is boneless, letting Cullen bend and arrange him however he likes. He even sees tears at the corners of Dorian's eyes.

     Absolutely beautiful. Cullen wants more.

     He lays Dorian down and strokes the tremors from the mage's limbs, biting at his shoulders and the nape of his neck while the mage whimpers into a fold in the velvet.

     "I have thought of doing terrible things to you," he confesses against the mage's skin. He's breathing hard himself, so aroused by watching Dorian's dissolution that his skin feels on fire. The oil calls to him, but he ignores the temptation for now. Let the mage recover. "I meant to do some of those things tonight. I wanted to hurt you." He always wants to hurt mages. Everything in him has been twisted into something horrid, and just because he can admit it does not mean he will ever be cured. "But you were prepared for that. I do not like being _anticipated_ , mage. You will have gentleness instead, therefore. This time."

     Dorian's breathing has slowed. He shivers with Cullen's caresses, and once Cullen's fingers tangle against his while stroking the spend off his skin. Touching himself? Cullen catches his hand and pulls it up to kiss the fingers, which twitch against Cullen's lips. "Let me have you, mage. Show me what you want."

     Dorian shivers again, harder, and Cullen sees him turn to stare hungrily, incredulously. Then he looks... shy? It seems impossible. But Dorian turns away, and wriggles a little in warning so that Cullen will allow him to stand. Rising, he goes over to the wall where there is an old tapestry -- and he leans against it. Waiting.

     Oh, yes.

     Cullen gets up as well, scooping up the bottle as he rises. Dorian breathes harder at the sight of Cullen annointing himself; in testament to his youth, already the mage is growing visibly aroused again. Marvelous. And predictable: Dorian does not seem the sort to take the unwilling favors of his slaves, so doubtless he has had nothing but mages as lovers before now. Weak creatures, most mages. No upper-body strength, no stamina. Cullen thinks of Dorian craving a warrior's strength, and the thought stirs him closer to violence. But no. Cullen has said he would be gentle.

     Gentle, but not timid. Dorian has wisely chosen the tapestry to protect his back against chafing, but Cullen wants something more. He goes to the mage and lifts him, and Dorian immediately wraps arms 'round Cullen's neck and legs 'round his hips. So eager _._ And oh, Cullen wants everything of him, everything, whether the mage offers it or not... But he reaches up and tears loose the tapestry.

     Dorian blinks up at this in confusion, but does not protest as Cullen carries him over to the north door, keeping the loose drape of tapestry against his back before pressing him against it. The mage's eyes widen when the door rattles a little. He understands now: anyone nearby -- like Cullen's aides, half of whom are probably already listening at the door -- will hear them.

     Cullen hitches him higher, reaching below to ease himself in. Dorian is relaxed and open and as ready for him as if he has been waiting for this. Perhaps he has been. When Dorian exhales, it is a sound of relief and awe and delight, not discomfort.

     "Not a sound," Cullen warns again. He is thrusting slowly, gentling Dorian into relaxing further, kissing his throat in between words. The oil between them smells of cloves and makes him hungry. "Obey me, and I shall make this last as long as I can for you."

     Dorian shudders violently, his breath quick and shaky in Cullen's ear. He nods, unnecessarily, to show that he understands. Yes.

     So Cullen is slow at first. Gentle, steady, concentrating on the rhythm, on keeping Dorian pinned against the door in such a way that Cullen can husband his strength in the most efficient way, on angling his movements to keep Dorian on the edge, on listening to the mage's whimpers and watching his tightening expression. He works up a sweat and the exertion feels good, like the best kind of sparring match when the adrenaline is high and the nerves are afire and the blood races and every sword-exchange feels like fucking. Like _fucking_ ; he cannot think of a less-vulgar word because nothing else encompasses this rhythm and this hot breath and the deep, visceral pull in his belly that comes each time his cock slides through the tight ring of Dorian's body, each time his balls press against heated flesh that is not his own. Even the sounds are vulgar: wet slapping, the rub of skin on sweaty skin, hard and desperate panting. And swallowed half-moans from Dorian; the mage has reached the point where he cannot completely hold it in anymore. His eyes are glazed slits and his bottom lip is in his teeth, bitten to redness, and the sound that is coming from him is a soft quick whine with every exhalation, from somewhere in the back of his nose. He probably isn't even aware of making that sound.

     A mage of Tevinter! An arrogant, beautiful, well-bred mage who thinks himself the equal of any other man. A mage who is easily one of the most powerful that Cullen has ever seen... reduced to whimpering helplessness on a southern Templar's cock.

     With a soft snarl Cullen quickens his movements, his breath coming faster, his muscles tightening to drive him harder before he can think to fight the urge. He meant to be gentle. But suddenly he _wants_ Dorian to lose control of himself. And he _wants_ the door to rattle and thump with each thrust; he fucks harder, makes it thump louder, and revels in his own ferocity. And he _wants_ the aides outside to hear, to know, so he presses his face against Dorian's neck and lets himself moan. Lets himself murmur all the things in his head: "Not a word, not a word, I have you, I _have_ you, and I will have you again and again, _try to stop me_ , you should have stayed away from me, this is not a game and I will never, ever stop -- "

     (Dorian clings to Cullen's shoulders, his arms tight, sobbing as Cullen takes him and takes him and _takes_ him. The remnant lyrium in Cullen's blood tingles and he looks up, hypersensitive, as the top of the tapestry that he tore off flares and catches fire. Deprived of any other outlet for his pleasure, Dorian's magic cries out on his behalf.)

     " -- you are mine, mine, _mine_ and I will not... ah, Maker, I will not..." He loses the words. The tapestry is ash. Wind blows in the room, stirred by Dorian's flailing magic; got a bit of force talent in him, feels like, though fortunately not much. And oh, Maker, Maker, Cullen is _mad_ with it, delirious with Dorian's crumbling and his own delight. The drumming of the door against its frame is as loud and fast as Cullen's heartbeat. He fumbles between them and finds Dorian's cock and laughs when a single stroke makes the mage jerk and keen and toss his head like a beast, hot wetness flicking over Cullen's fingers. Magnificent! Cullen throws back his head and shouts because Dorian cannot, exults because because he _can_ , and the orgasm comes down on him like a hammerblow.

     When at last he comes back to himself, he is on the floor, where he has fallen with Dorian in a heap. The mage is boneless against him, panting; Cullen finds that he himself has slumped sideways in an ugly, awkward position. It takes Cullen three tries to even begin to sit up. His limbs are too weak, the first two times. He's so out of breath that even once he's managed to straighten, he can only press his forehead against Dorian's and shut his eyes and breathe, for a time.

     Slowly, his strength returns. When it does, he opens his eyes to find Dorian watching him, still panting. There is a smile on the mage's lips that is both smug and a little hysterical; he tries to laugh once, but it comes out breathless and drunken. On impulse Cullen kisses him, just a brief, light thing. When he pulls away, Dorian's smile is gone, and the mage blinks at him in apparent confusion. _A whim, nothing more_ , Cullen wants to tell him, and if he could he would shrug and make his voice nonchalant. But he cannot manage either the words or the pretense of detachment. He can only meet Dorian's gaze, and match Dorian's confusion, because suddenly he does not know what to feel.

     The moment stretches between them, pent and silent.

     Then someone coughs outside, only a few feet away from the door, and someone else snickers audibly. That is enough to spur Cullen to get up. He means to lift Dorian, too, but is still too tingle-limbed to manage it, so the best he can do is stand and offer a hand to help Dorian up. It's late now, and the room is chilly, so he notices it when the mage shivers at the loss of Cullen's body-heat. He's all over sweat; the cold cannot be good for his northerner constitution. (And he is all over oil and threads of his own come, but it's all the same thing: wetness.) So Cullen pulls him back to the chaise, flops on it and tugs the mage down with him, and somehow they end up warm and tangled in each other and crushed velvet.

     They breathe together for awhile, recovering. Dorian lifts a hand and brushes fingertips along the edge of Cullen's hairline. Cullen frowns a little at this, but the mage just looks amused and then strokes the divot that the frown has produced between his brows. Then the breadth of Cullen's forehead, then the length of his nose, then the edges of his lips and the line of scar that bisects his mouth on one side. Through this examination, even now, Dorian does not speak. Cullen wonders why at first, and then recalls his own words. _If you speak, this ends._ Dorian must not want it to end yet.

     But. It must. Cullen reaches up and catches the mage's wandering hand. "You cannot stay," he says.

     He means it to sound harsh, but his voice doesn't come out the way he intends. Even to his own ears he sounds regretful. Dorian blinks, then smiles.

     "At least this time I got to see you out of armor," he says. After so much silence, his voice makes Cullen twitch a little, though it is velvet-soft and barely louder than a whisper. "Small steps, and all. Perhaps next time we can work up to cuddling."

     Then Dorian sits up, stretching in long graceful lines before climbing over Cullen to begin searching the scatter of clothing on the floor. Cullen rolls over to watch him dress, feeling... he does not have a word for the dull ache that sits in his belly. He doesn't know what to do with it, either.

     But he says, "If you leave by the east door, no one will see you." That is the door that Dorian came by, probably cutting through Solas' mural-chamber. Maker knows what the elf thought of that, but it is irrelevant. Cullen swallows. "If you leave by the north door, however..."

     That is the door through which Cullen's aides have heard him moan and rut and declare ownership of his lover. But because Dorian has been silent, they will not know who that lover is. They can guess, of course. There are always rumors -- but they will remain rumors, unless Dorian chooses to show them proof.

     Dorian, in the midst of pulling on his boots, pauses. "Ah, I _see_. Hmm. I appreciate your concern for my, ah, reputation, Commander, but..." He shakes his head to himself in amusement, tugging the other boot on and then straightening. "You don't know me very well, do you?"

     And he heads for the north door.

     Cullen sits up. His belly is tight. "Be certain, mage."

     Dorian stops, hand on the latch. "But it will go harder on you, Commander," he says. He's still speaking softly, though the wretches beyond the door will probably hear him if they're listening against it. In the faint light of the nearly-burned-down candles, Cullen cannot see Dorian's face. "You realize that, don't you? Everyone already treats me like Hessarian reborn, but _you_... ah, you are the hope of the Templars, the upstanding soldier incarnate, the lone good man to have emerged from the suppurating hole that was the Gallows. When this becomes known, some of your soldiers may lose faith with you." He sighs, abruptly sounding sad. "If you'd rather I take the east door, I'll understand."

     It is a serious warning, and true. The Templars, especially, may refuse Cullen's command after this. The Inquisitor, and his fellow advisors, will be unhappy with him for damaging the Inquisition with his selfishness. But...

     "I have never been what anyone thinks I am," Cullen says. He shifts to lean back against the wall, gazing at the rumpled cloth of the chaise, and beyond it the floor. " _You_ have seen the truth of me. If that does not shame you... let everyone else see, too."

     From the corner of his eye he sees the silhouette of Dorian look at him. "You? Shame _me_? Never." There is a moment of silence. "Everyone will know you spent the evening practically fucking me through a door, though. There's that."

     It seems an absurd point. Cullen has tortured mages -- on orders, but still. He has stood witness to unspeakable violations and done nothing. He has wielded the brand of Tranquility himself, and though he meant it a mercy, that means nothing to the fact of a life destroyed. All that, and others might think him perverse for being rough with a bedmate? Ashes of Andraste, at least Dorian was willing.

     "Let them see me," Cullen says again, to the floor. "If you would have me attached to you."

     He hears Dorian's smile, somehow. "You said I was yours, remember? Said it rather vehemently, as I recall." He laughs, strokes his moustache, runs fingers through his hair to make sure that it looks artfully mussed. Even in the shadows he is beautiful, and he knows it. "I might dispute your claim eventually, but for now, I suppose it could be entertaining. Vivienne said something once that has always intrigued me: a leash can be pulled from both ends."

     Cullen blinks and frowns at him. "What?"

     Dorian shrugs. "If I am yours, then you are mine. It follows, does it not? And when I stake my claim to something, Commander, I like for everyone to know. Cuts down on the duels, and such."

     With that, he turns the latch and steps through the door. Cullen's heart clenches. He does not know why.

     But as he hears Dorian's voice heartily, _loudly_ greeting the aides with, "Lovely evening, isn't it? This cold mountain air is so _bracing_ on the skin," something in Cullen relaxes. The confession is made. The sin is revealed. And the mage... has not condemned him. Not yet.

     Then Cullen curls up on the chaise, letting himself relax at last with the scents of charred tapestry and perfumed powder and clove oil and sweat surrounding him. He sleeps better than he has in years.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I don't want to kill you," Cullen says. "Stay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no actual idea how a straight-haired person's moustache works. Apologies if I've gotten it wrong.

     Dorian loves life in the south. There's so much snow, and freezing mountain air -- and the swamps! So good for the skin, mud. The food is so unique, utterly lacking in spices and often boiled into such a pleasantly consistent mushy texture. And here, everyone only hates him for being a free mage, and for being Tevinter, and lately for corrupting the Inquisition's commander. Not for being a disappointing son, or a flawed Altus. Not for preferring men. It's all just so _refreshing_.

     Dorian has long since grown inured to the stares, the pointing fingers, the covertly rude gestures. No different from home. He rather likes the whispering, though. Always good to be talked about. Obscurity is the real danger, see; as long as everyone is watching him, none of the formerly-rebel Templars can quietly haul him into a back room and "teach him his place" with their mailed fists or Maker knows what else, as some have promised in passing murmurs. None of the rebel mages will challenge him to duels as long as he is simultaneously a pariah and one of the Inquisitor's right-hand men: there is only censure to be had from it, and no honor, even if they win. He isn't worth fighting.

     Things _are_ slightly worse after it sweeps through Skyhold that noble, beloved Commander Cullen has been seduced by _That Tevinter_ who surely must have used blood magic to make him do all those unspeakable things (which everyone speaks of). Dorian starts having to buy food directly from the vendors, or graze the tables in the great hall, after a few orders from Skyhold's kitchens arrive with visible rat droppings or spittle as garnish. The Chantry mothers actually manage to turn their noses even higher at him; he hopes their necks are all right. Cassandra comes to find him in the tavern one night, drags him out to the practice area, and makes him worry for his skin, but it turns out that she only wants to threaten him: "Break his heart and I will kill you." Dorian reassures her that the commander cannot even bring himself to pass the night in Dorian's presence; heartbreaking is unlikely. For some reason, this breaks her tirade, and she stares at him. Then she makes a disgusted noise and stomps off, and Dorian counts his limbs carefully before slinking back to the bar.

     Otherwise, though? Same old, same old. He travels to the corners of Thedas with Trevelyan, grimly enduring the fool's presence for the sake of saving the world. Trevelyan is ruder to him now, and once or twice Dorian thinks it will come to fisticuffs -- Trevelyan is too vulgarly physical to fight with magic -- but they manage to keep things civil. Vivienne, Dorian thinks, respects him more for having acquired a lover whose rank accords a degree of status; the Iron Bull, meanwhile, throws him pitying looks, and occasionally remarks that Dorian could've had three hundred pounds and seven feet of horned muscle instead. Alas.

     And in between there is Cullen.

     It becomes a _thing_ , between them. Not a relationship, not when they never speak of emotion and Cullen still allows Leliana to dangle him like a carrot in front of foolish Orlesian nobles who think they fell in love with him at the Winter Palace ball. (He came home that night and put Dorian over his desk, slow steady rutting that lasted hours, his breath like a metronome in Dorian's ear.) Not when Dorian cannot help flirting with Scout Harding and other women he meets; it old habit, protective camouflage, even though everyone knows his true leanings. (On the parapets Cullen kisses him sometimes, cupping his head, controlling his mouth; it is so dizzying that sometimes Dorian fears he will fall to his death.) Cullen admits, once as he is dressing and Dorian has perhaps forgotten to keep his expression nonchalant, that some part of Cullen constantly expects any nearby mage to be possessed at any given moment, even between one word and the next. It is irrational, but fear is irrational. Dorian laughs at this, which is perhaps cruel, but he has always turned cruel when he is hurt; it's a failing, and sometimes a necessity. (Cullen looks at him, then kneels before him and kisses his belly and worships Dorian's nipple-rings and massages his cock until Dorian collapses against him, shaking, too spent to be angry. Cullen still leaves, the wretch, and without even a farewell -- but Dorian falls asleep quickly, at least.)

     It's just a thing. Nothing more.

     It goes harder on Cullen, of course, as Dorian has warned. Some of their noble allies sever ties with the Inquisition, giving excuses though everyone knows the truth. Cullen supports Ser Barris to become the Templars' new Knight-Commander and it very nearly derails the whole thing. Some of the Templars immediately put forward their own candidate -- a brute of a man named Ser Wrenthus, who is best known for killing the most mages at the Dairsmuid Circle annulment. Wrenthus stands atop a crate in the lower courtyard one afternoon, speechifying to his supporters about how Barris would not kill the mages in his assigned circle, and that it is a bad sign whenever a Templar goes soft on the robes. He does not come right out and say the name, but he looks up towards Cullen's tower, and the small crowd of armored men rumbles with laughter. Barris looks on with tight jaw and folded arms, knowing better than to protest.

     Dorian visits Varric, heads to the tavern with him, and the two of them spend an afternoon playing casual Wicked Grace with all challengers. Those who balk at playing against Dorian are charmed by the dwarf's easy friendliness, lulled by his storyteller's voice. By the end of it the rumor has been firmly seeded that Ser Wrenthus is half Tevinter -- he looks it, so it might even be true -- and that six of the newborns in the down-mountain camp look just like him. Varric even tosses in that Wrenthus' mother might have been a Dalish Keeper. Within the week Wrenthus is getting into daily fist-fights, and Ser Barris is elected with ease.

     (All this just because Dorian brought him a cask of Kirkwallian ale. It was awful, but Varric sighed at the taste of home. "I suppose I do owe Curly one for siding with Hawke," he'd said, before destroying Wrenthus' career with a smile.)

     It is a small scandal, when played out against the backdrop of the potential end of the world, but it is wearing. And on the day that Dorian receives a small but ornate message scroll stamped with the seal of House Regundar, he is already feeling low. There's a storm blowing outside, cold and bone-aching wet, the capper to a miserable week spent on the Storm Coast negotiating with Hessarian-worshipping barbarians. One of them mistook Dorian for a Chasind, so Cole took it upon himself to announce to all in hearing that Dorian _curls beneath the covers on the dark nights, lonely, longing, licking his fingers and thinking of a tongue not his own, he tastes me, bites me, but will I ever be good enough to devour?_ Which was awkward and awful but at least kept Dorian warm all the way back, flushing in embarrassment.

     So when he breaks the seal and his eyes skim the lines he does not actually read them the first two times. Then he reads again and remembers that Regundar is his mother's birth-house, but the handwriting is his father's, and he realizes Halward has written to Dorian using his mother's seal because he fears Dorian would have just tossed anything with the Pavus stamp into the fire unread. Halward was right, but still.

     The letter says nothing new: another apology (Dorian laughs), a reminiscence on Dorian's childhood meant to engender warm feelings (it does), a plea for him to return and consider a compromise (marry who he likes or not at all, but at least impregnate the girl; alas, stud service appeals to Dorian no more than a sham marriage). And in the postscript, as an afterthought, Halward adds, _We have heard the news of your friend Felix's death. I know that you were close._ The ink is heavier on the last word. Halward thinks Dorian tupped Felix. Hah. _If it is any consolation, my contacts among the Venatori assure me that Felix did not suffer for long; the Blight sickness had already taken his mind by the time they put him to the stake. The burning was merely to ensure that it did not spread._

     Dorian sits down on his bed. The letter slips from his fingers and curls unnoticed on the floor.

     Then he gets up and heads into the dreary night.

     He reaches the door of Cullen's tower soaked to the bone. None of the aides lurk outside, thankfully, though usually they do not impede him and generally seemed pleased when he visits. He is their commander's stress relief, after all; apparently Cullen is known to have a sweeter temper for a day or so after he's had a bit of mage arse. The door isn't locked -- Cullen never locks it -- but the room beyond is empty. Dorian stands there a moment, dripping, bedraggled, his thoughts too still to muddle through what he should do next. Then he hears a soft groan from upstairs.

     He hates the fucking ladder. But at the top of it, he finds that the room looks better than the last time he saw it, weeks ago and hungover: Cullen's had the roof repaired at last. The hole in the floor is still there, but fresh boarding has been laid over it and obviously that will be fixed next. Instead of sunlight or starlight, the room is aglow with three lanterns, and someone's even tossed a threadbare rug over the floorboards next to the bed. Homey.

     Cullen's in the bed. In the light of the lanterns he glows too, because his whole body is sheened with sweat. He's naked, the sheets knotted and half torn off because he's _flailing_ , gripping the mattress, uttering cries so strangled that Dorian wonders if he'll choke. It's obvious that getting close to a Templar in the midst of a nightmare -- a Templar who is terrified of sleeping near mages -- is a stupid idea, so Dorian settles in a chair nearby instead, wondering if he should do something to wake the man. Call his name? Throw a candlestick at him? Set his short-hairs afire? All of it seems guaranteed to trigger a reflexive Holy Smite, and Dorian would really rather not be knocked unconscious tonight. No matter how much he wants to speak to Cullen, to tell him... Dorian doesn't know. He just needs... he doesn't know.

     So he sits back and takes what comfort he can in watching Cullen groan and struggle against imaginary enemies, until suddenly Cullen sucks in a breath and sits up. His eyes go immediately to Dorian; his hand goes immediately to his hip for a sword that isn't there; his expression turns immediately homicidal.

     "Are you a demon?" Cullen demands. His voice is rough from sleeping, his eyes not entirely lucid.

     "Not today," Dorian says, reflexively flippant.

     To his surprise and distant amusement, this actually seems to relax Cullen. He exhales and slumps a little, shifting out of his "invisible swordsman" stance. "I thought... Maker. I dreamt of you."

     "Are you still afraid of me?" It only occurs to Dorian later that this might be a poor question to ask. Cullen bares his underbelly so rarely; he might not like having it poked. And indeed, Cullen does not answer, rubbing his face and sighing as the nightmare finally passes.

     "What are you doing here?" Cullen says, after a moment. "I need to rest."

     Dorian opens his mouth, then closes it. But some response is expected, so he makes himself laugh because that is his usual way to fill uncomfortable silence. "My best friend was burned alive by the Venatori."

     He hears Cullen react with some slight movement, though he does not see it because he's looking at his hands. But Cullen says nothing, so Dorian continues, "It would amuse him, I think, to suffer Andraste's fate. He had such a macabre sense of humor, much worse than mine." His hands twitch. "I loved him. Not like _that_ , though everyone thought we were lovers. Me and Felix? Maker's Breath no. He would have wanted a _relationship_. Pet-names and date nights and hand-fasting and such. Would've destroyed both our houses just so that he could treat me like something precious and important. The romantic fool." He's babbling. After the last word, he clenches his teeth to try and bite off the stream of nonsense, but his jaw flexes and one more bit comes out. "I loved him."

     And then he just sits there. He, an Altus from a two-thousand-year-old family, trained by the finest minds of the finest empire that humankind had ever known. He can think of nothing else to say, nothing to do. He doesn't even know why he came.

     Cullen shifts again. "You're soaked to the bone." He hesitates. "Take those clothes off."

     Dorian stands, moving automatically. The habit of obeying Cullen has become ingrained by now; he makes a show of resistance because it is pleasing to both of them, but he likes it and they both know that too. When he is naked he just stands there. Perhaps Cullen will come and fuck him. Perhaps he'll just leave Dorian here naked and shivering all night so that he can get some sleep.

     "Come," Cullen says, lying back down and rolling over. This leaves half of the bed open for Dorian.

     Dorian blinks. "You need to rest."

     "I will endure." His back is to Dorian.

     The selfless thing would be for Dorian to refuse, put his clothes back on, and go back to be miserable in his own damned room. Dorian has never been selfless, so he goes over to the bed and climbs into it. The sheets feel clammy; they're damp with Cullen's sweat. But Dorian likes the smell and feel of Cullen's sweat, and his own skin is wet from the storm outside. He pulls the sheet up to cover himself, and curls up on his side with his back to Cullen's back, and it is still better than being miserable alone.

     He drifts then, not really sleeping. Cullen is silent behind him, but Dorian can sense that he is awake; the Fade is nowhere near. It bothers him that Cullen will not sleep, and gradually the guilt begins to push aside the misery such that he opens his mouth to say he is satisfied and will now go home.

     The rattle of the door downstairs startles him. He jumps, though Cullen is apparently inured to it. "Commander?" calls a voice. One of Cullen's aides. Cullen doesn't respond, though, and after a minute the aide says to someone else, "Told you. Just put the report there; when he comes down he'll see it."

     "How do you know he's sleeping?" asks another young voice, in a stage whisper.

     The first aide laughs, not bothering to soften her voice. "If he was up there awake, he'd be at his mage, and we'd hear the floorboards creaking and such." There is a pause to appreciate the silence. "See? He's asleep. And he sleeps heavy."

     There is a rustle of papers deposited, the thunk of a paperweight being moved. "Would he really be up there if he, uh, had company? With the door open and all, knowing we might come in?"

     The first aide snorts. "Commander don't care if we hear. Why would he? It's just a mage."

     The casual ease of such dehumanization never fails to amaze Dorian.

     "Pretty, though," says the other aide. " _Awful_ pretty." He sounds wistful. Well, at least they're bigots with taste.

     "If you like fancy types. Didn't think the Commander did, but ehn." The woman yawns. "Maybe that's what the mageflesh was like back in the Gallows, who knows. Come on, let's get back to the card game."

     There are steps, and a door creaks, and the thump as it shuts echoes through the tower for several seconds.

     "Does it bother you?" Dorian asks in the quiet. "That they think you're a monster?"

     The silence stretches for so long that he starts to think Cullen won't answer. "I am a monster."

     "Monsters hurt _people_." Dorian is thinking of the Venatori, and fire. "You heard them. I'm just a mage."

     Cullen's sigh is heavy and weary and Dorian feels guilty for being bitter and needy. "No," Cullen says. "Monsters _hurt_ people."

     Dorian laughs, once. "Felix warned me," he says, wrapping his arms about himself. Usually he is warm in Cullen's bed, but not now, when Cullen isn't touching him. "He didn't want me to come here. He said I would be nothing, less than nothing." And Dorian had thought he was prepared. But the relentless hatred of these people, day after day and month after month... He has developed more respect for southern mages. At least, back home, no one has built an organization to imprison men who crave men. Yet, anyhow. "He was right. I can't even find a lover who doesn't want to kill me."

     Cullen doesn't respond and Dorian wants to weep. Or laugh, or both. It's ridiculous, isn't it? How is this better than staying in Tevinter and marrying whatever-her-name-was? At least there, once he'd gotten her with child, he would've been able to find a man who'd hold him and whisper sweet lies in his ear. Why has he saddled himself with... _this_? Whatever the Void Cullen can be called. Why is he even _here_?

     Why, indeed. Dorian pushes himself up and flicks off the sheet. To the demons with this, with Cullen, with the Inquisition, with the entire flea-infested south; he's going home.

     Then he stops, because Cullen's hand is on his wrist. Frowning, he looks back at the man, who has rolled onto his back.

     "I don't want to kill you," Cullen says. "Stay."

     Well. How can Dorian refuse such an impassioned entreaty?

     Slowly, warily, Dorian lies back down. He is surprised, then, when the bed shifts with Cullen's weight, and his arms slide around Dorian from behind. That is... better. He's always so warm.

     "I do still fear you," Cullen says, after awhile. Answering a question that Dorian's half forgotten. "I may always fear you. It is... not a rational thing."

     Dorian apparently tenses because Cullen's hand strokes his arm, soothing. Dorian makes himself relax, swallows against the ache in his throat. "Well, I _am_ terrifyingly handsome."

     Soft puff of air against the nape of his neck. It barely qualifies as a laugh, but it is something. "That you are."

     Dorian has to swallow again. He wants to take Cullen's hand but does not dare. It is enough that Cullen is warming his back like a human furnace, though, isn't it? It is what he wanted, coming here, he now knows. He has had a hundred bedmates, and none have simply _held_ him before now. It is something he did not know he needed.

     What does one _do_ , when being held? Is there an etiquette for this? Damnation; sex is so much easier. In his frustration, Dorian curls up a little more and pushes his face into the pillow. Cullen's arms tighten around him. What does that mean?

     _Say something, you ponce,_ Felix's voice says in his mind.

     _I will not be mother-henned by you from the damned grave,_ Dorian thinks back, irritably.

     But because it is Felix, and Felix was always wise, and because Dorian is not wise and he is full of need and that need is not for sex and he doesn't know what to _do_ with that, how can he _not_ want that, what is even _wrong_ with him... he blurts the thing that has been in his mind. "Will you ever be able to trust me?"

     Cullen nuzzles the back of his neck, sighing again. "I mean to try."

     That is... oh.

     Cullen falls silent. After a long while, his breathing evens, and Dorian feels the Fade draw closer. He's sleeping? He is actually sleeping, with a mage in his bed.

     Dorian drifts off too. He doesn't mean to. Cullen's likely to have another nightmare and throttle Dorian to death in his sleep. There are consequences to taking up with a mad, magephobic ex-Templar. But Cullen is warm, and the bed is soft, and with the roof fixed, the tower room is quiet, cozy. Dorian feels safe, even if he isn't, and he is comforted, even if Cullen hasn't meant to comfort him. He sleeps.

#

     In the morning, just because Dorian feels that he has a reputation to maintain, he waits until Cullen stirs and then presses him down and demands kisses from the man's morning-breath-laden mouth. One thing leads to another and soon Dorian is riding him, stroking himself, biting his fingers to keep from coming too soon, dying by degrees on Cullen's marvelous cock. They've never had morning sex before. Somehow it's better. Cullen gazes up at him with a look that is... not murderous. He does sit up at one point and grab Dorian by the shoulders and hold him in place and fuck relentlessly up into him. This part of him will never change, Dorian understands: Cullen will always be a demanding and frequently violent lover. Indeed, he eventually throws Dorian onto his face and drags his hips up and drums him halfway through the mattress, and right through the sound of another aide coming in and snickering downstairs. It feels so good that Dorian doesn't even care.

     But when they are done and Dorian lies curled in the pleasantly sore aftermath, watching Cullen pull on his clothes and feeling vaguely resentful of the Inquisition's armies for apparently requiring so much work, Cullen says, "I must attend a meeting in the war room shortly."

     "Mmph," Dorian says. Considering the depth of the afterglow, he really feels that this is quite eloquent.

     Cullen glances at him, half-smiling in a way that makes the fetching little scar on his lip wriggle. "The corner of your moustache is askew."

     Probably because Cullen kissed him 'til Dorian thought their lips might knit together. " _Venhedis_ ," he mutters, reaching up and trying to smooth the curl back into place. "Now I'll have to slink back to my room through the shadows, lest anyone see me and be so appalled that they quit the Inquisition."

     Cullen dons his mantle, picks up his vambraces, then swings about to begin backing down the ladder. He pauses on the third rung, though, to look at Dorian. Suddenly seeming... awkward? Yes, awkward. How curious. He hesitates, then says, "Perhaps you could assemble a smaller version of your grooming kit to keep here. For the mornings."

     Oh. _Oh_.

     Dorian clears his throat briskly. "Ah. Yes. For, ah, the mornings. Yes, that's wise."

     Cullen ducks his eyes, and -- oh. Yes. That is a smile.

     Then Dorian lies back amid the fading scent of Cullen, listening while downstairs he reads missives and stamps some things and eventually leaves for his meeting. Afterward, Dorian uses the washbasin for a whore's bath, gets dressed, heads downstairs, and steps outside. Two aides lurk there, gazing over the parapets and pointing down the mountain toward a unit that seems to be doing some sort of marching thing, whatever army units do, Dorian cannot be bothered to pay attention to such mundane things.

     He stops beside them, gazing out over the spreading vista of the mountains, and hears them falter to silence as they notice and stare at him. "I _do_ so love life in the south," Dorian says, glancing over and smiling expansively at them. "It's all just so _refreshing_."

     He strolls off, leaving them staring. For just a moment the wind shifts, and he thinks it sounds like Felix's laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> So... I kind of hate DA: Inquisition. And I've tried to like DAI Cullen and Dorian, and I kind of can't. Which is why this Cullen will probably read as heavily out of character relative to game canon -- I honestly can't see him taking up with a mage unless it's a bit fucked-up -- and which is why I likely won't be writing more DA fic from here forth.
> 
> Sidenote: apologies for playing fast & loose with Skyhold's architecture. I'd stopped playing the game by the time I wrote this, and I don't think Dorian's room is anywhere near the chapel.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Our Prayer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8457919) by [wargoddess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess)




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